Well, if your Black History (Awareness) Month hasn’t been poppin’ so far, maybe you need a little bossa nova.
I want to widen the scope a little outside of America and take in one of my favorite movies of all time – the gorgeous Orfeu negro (Black Orpheus), directed by Marcel Camus and starring Breno Marcel and Marpessa Dawn as the ill-fated (and possibly reincarnated) lovers Orpheus and Eurydice.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nVkDfnGobmI
Orfeu negro, as you might expect, is an adaption of the Greek myth. And we all know those myths seldom ended well. Prior to seeing it, my only exposure to Brazilian film was The Three Caballeros and the first of many Zé do Caixão films. And those are fine films, but not representative of the country’s filmography as a whole. So with my limited knowledge of Brazilian Portuguese* and my love of art films and bossa nova in hand, I was ready for this viewing on a night just like this many February moons ago. You gotta take a break from repeat watchings of Roots sometimes.
The first thing that is hard to miss about this movie is how visually stunning it is. Bright colors, luxurious costumes, dancing, samba, and soulful singing create the backdrop for this story of love and death during Carnival.
But the reason that this movie has been indelibly etched on my mind since is how very, very… black it is. When we talk about blackness in movies it extends to beyond having a black cast – it’s interacting with blackness, with the culture, with the language, religion, themes that connect us across the diaspora. Watching Orfeu negro transported me to a world that was extremely different yet familiar. A vibrant community of people that looked like me even though they spoke a different language.
The driving force of Orfeu negro is love and jealousy and fate, but it takes some time to touch on some evergreen topics. The movie is set in a favela in Rio. Favelas are described as low-income areas originally populated by former slaves, soldiers, and migrant workers. Hmm, low-income area shafted away in a big city. Sound a little familiar? That’s right, we’re in the ‘hood! And as we tend to do in the ghetto, life is tough but the characters make do with what they have and rely on each other. Naturally, as it is Carnival, everyone is giving every last cent they have to having a grand time to forget the loneliness and desolation of regular life as it is.
Eurydice is derided a few times for her darker skin tone and alleged ugliness by lighter skinned characters. By contrast, her rival Mira is lighter and shown to be highly desirable as lighter characters often are, but she has a bad attitude and a mean-streak that intimidates other characters in the movie. That Orpheus quickly chose the darker-skinned love interest blew my young mind, as to that point I hadn’t experienced that in a romance movie. It’s also a pretty bold choice for a movie set in a country where fair skin is still held in high regard despite the increasing population of darker-skinned folks.
Orfeu negro also mixes traditional Greek myth with Afro-Brazilian religion. The final act of the film features a Macumba ritual as Orpheus tries to guide his love out of the afterlife. The treatment of the ritual in the context of the myth reminded me of the syncretic blending of Catholism and indigenous religions. Oh, and samba? Music and dance that stems from West Africa, spread via slave trade. Wow, it was like someone took my dreams of what a truly black movie could be and threw them up on the screen – except, well, different.
Of course, as an American it’s a little tenuous for me to “claim” this movie. But, it broadened my horizons. I was vaguely aware of the Afro-Brazilian community at the time, but I had no idea they made up more than half of the country’s population. I had no idea about the cultural impact that Afro-Brazilians have left on the landscape of the country. Contributions from the Afro-Brazilian community almost single-highhandedly drive Brazil’s image in pop culture from sports to fashion. I learned later that Brazil has a complex and often dangerous relationship with race that continues to the current day. That history was way out of my scope at the time – I could only assume their experiences based on my own very limited worldview, which typically included the failure to recognize diversity and the usual oppression and misery.
That on-going history of systematic oppression is what makes watching Orfeu negro now tough. Brazil has recently elected Jair Bolsonaro, often heralded as the Brazilian Trump. Except Bolsonaro is somehow objectively worse. Upon assuming office he began actively disenfranchising indigenous communities, women, the LGBTQ+ community, and black folks. And he’s doing it quickly and effectively. Eerily similar to what plays out in the US, but Brazil’s political corruption is massive and has actually resulted in convictions from the very tip-top on down. And if you think any political party is safe, it’s… not.
Tough to watch now, maybe even painful. It’s hard to look at the climate of Brazil these days and think of this achingly beautiful, vibrant film made in 1959 by a French director. How could he have crafted something that touched the very heart of what I felt back then, in a country so far away in a language I didn’t even speak? It’s important during this month and every month to remember that Black History is vast and our cultural impact is far-reaching and black folks are more than suffering and enslavement.
*Edit 24th January 2021 to correct the reported language in the film from Spanish to Brazilian Portuguese. Many thanks to the reader who spotted this and let us know