OrpheusEurydice1.0393

Marcel Camus, director, Orfeu Negro (Black Orpheus), motion picture, 1959, cinematic adaptation of Vinicius de Moraes' Orfeu da Conceiçao (Orpheus from Conception). First prize, Cannes International Film Festival, 1959.

Orfeu is streetcar operator in Rio de Janeiro; Eurydice is stalked by a mysterious man during the Carnival. The incessant rhythm of the Bossa Nova score infects the every step of maenadic Mira and her followers. Orfeu's narrative parallels the mythic Orpheus in virtually every step, from his animation of his society's music, the ubiquitous rhythmns that accompany him, the loss and recovery mission for his lover even into the bowels of modern bureaucratic nightmares and morgues, his violent death at bacchantic hands, and finally the promise of his music's continuation even after his demise. Orfeu's guitar had belonged to "a master Orpheus" before, and it is in the hands of his successor when the sun rises upon a new day.
This creative adaptation is worth knowing well, even if only for its introduction of bossa nova music to the world through cinema. Note opener (0:0:25).

One of the most evocative scenes: the depiction (1:28:30ff) of a bureacratic hell, where there are no souls, just lost paperwork. Think of Homer's leaves as souls of men. (Il. 6.116).