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<TITLE>Review for Orfeu (1999)</TITLE>
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<H1 ALIGN="CENTER" CLASS="title"><A HREF="/Title?0183613">Orfeu (1999)</A></H1><H3 ALIGN=CENTER>reviewed by<BR><A HREF="/ReviewsBy?Harvey+S.+Karten">Harvey S. Karten</A></H3><HR WIDTH="40%" SIZE="4">
<PRE>ORFEU</PRE>
<P> Reviewed by Harvey Karten
 New Yorker Films 
 Director: Carlos Diegues
 Writers: Carlos Diegues with Hermano Vianna, Hamilton Vaz
Pereira, Paulo Lins, Joao Emanuel Carneiro
 Cast: Toni Garrido, Patricia Franca, Murilo Benicio, Zeze
Motta, Milton Goncalves, Isabel Fillardis, Maria Ceica, Stepan
Nercessian, Mauricio Goncalves, Lucio Andrey, Eliezer Motta</P>
<P>   Mention the word "Rio" to any world traveler and be
prepared for a lecture on the city's magnificence, whether at
Carnival time or during the slightly less frantic remainder of
the year.  Take in a romantic comedy like Bruno Barreto's
"Bossa Nova" about a romance between an American woman
(Amy Irving) teaching English in Rio and an older man
(Antonio Fagundi) and you'll be ready to call Varig to make
reservations.  Now comes a film that takes "Bossa Nova" a
few steps further, transporting romance into poetry rather
than pleasant fluff and dealing quite an edge of tragedy to the
goings on in the land of the Cariocans. Despite the fate of the
two lovers at the conclusion of the story you'll be more
captivated than ever with Brazil's world-famous resort.</P>
<P>   Marcel Camus's 1959 masterwork "Black Orpheus" is still
the standard by which to judge updated works on the Greek
legend of Orpheus and Eurydice.  In that French-Brazilian
collaboration, a street-car conductor and a country girl fall in
love with Rio during Carnival season.  The picture deservedly
won the Oscar for Best Foreign Film principally because of its
stellar acting by Breno Mello and Marpessa Dawn.  In
directing this new version, however, Carlos Diegues's wants
the audience to be aware that (quoting the production notes )
"the romanticism of 'Black Orpheus,' a happy people, its back
turned toward civilization, living dancing and singing beautiful
songs in a dreamy landscape...has changed...Brazil has
developed...it is one of the world's most socially inequitable
societies, with a massive gap between the poor and the rich." 
This update of the Greek legend is gritty.</P>
<P>   While "Orfeu" shows us nothing about the life of the rich--
we don't see the bikini-clad beauties on the beaches of
Copacabana or Ipanema or bankers and successful business
people going about their work--we do get to see quite a bit of
the poverty of the city.  The poor, as Diegues shows us
vividly, live in favelas (slums) that are worse than anything
most Americans have to put up with.  These slums
dwellers, like so many unfortunate residents of American
ghettoes, live in the midst of violent drug dealers armed with
semi-automatics and sometimes have to dodge bullets that
the police seem legally able to fire off at will.  Though the
misery of  these people is not contrasted in the film with the
opulence of the rich, their poverty is nonetheless tempered by
their love for dancing, their community spirit, and their
passionate involvement in the annual carnival.  This is not to
say that the folks who commit no crimes and do no drugs are
angelic.  The women in particular, in Diegues's vision, are
consumed by jealousy and spitefulness, their moods
centering exclusively on how the famed Orfeu treats them
from one day to another.</P>
<P>   How can one person--this Orfeu (Ton Garrido)--evoke so
much emotion in so many women?  He's handsome, sure,
and he's as confident of himself as Richard Gere's character
in his current film, "Autumn in New York."  However his music
is what gives him erotic appeal--to such an extent that the
local kids believe that his guitar strumming and the original
songs he composes in honor of whichever woman strikes his
fancy that day can prevent the sun from going down.  When
Orfeu throws aside the lively and sexually liberated Mira
(Isabel Fillardis) the wheels of tragedy begin spinning.  The
narcissistic musician has eyes only for Euridice (Patricia
Franca), perhaps because she appears to play hard-to-get,
perhaps because he has genuinely fallen in love at first sight. 
When Euridice finally admits her own love for the poet-
musician, she urges him to leave town with her, to remove
themselves from the power of Orfeu's boyhood chum Lucinho
(Murilo Benicio) who has turned into the favela's drug kingpin.</P>
<P>   Diegues does a good job balancing several motifs: the
battles with the drug lords led by the police sergeant,
Pacheco (Stepan Nercessian) who hates the poor and given
the chance would level the favela; the delayed romance of
the two principles, which makes us wonder whether they ever
will get together; the envy of the women from Orfeu's first girl
friend on down; the desire of Orfeu's mother, Conceicao
(Zeze Motta) to get her son to leave town.  </P>
<P>   Narrative aside, the best aspect of this film is the luscious
shots that cinematographer Affonso Beato captures of the
dazzling, colorful carnival, principally the competition among
various Samba schools which practice all year for the
competition.  Beato also pans to the obligatory sights of the
Christ of the Andes and to Sugarloaf Mountain, shows us a
huge and almost surreal moon that could make you certain
that a man truly resides there, and knows how to hold the
camera lovingly at the key shots to keep the audience ogling
with envy--even at the folks who live in what Latinos would
call the Barrio.  The Portuguese language adds harmony to
Orfeu's rhythms, adding color to a movie that only the most
reality-obsessed person in the audience could ignore.</P>
<P>Not Rated.  Running time: 110 minutes.  (C) 2000 by
Harvey Karten, <A HREF="mailto:film_critic@compuserve.com">film_critic@compuserve.com</A></P>
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