BLACK ORFEUS - BRAZILIAN MOVIE Orpheus - The Greek Legend According to mythology, Orpheus was the son of Apollo and the Muse Calliope. He was a poet and musician with whom many legends are associated. It was said that Orpheus could play the lyre so well that he could charm wild beasts and even make trees and rocks move with his music.

He married Eurydice, who was a nymph of the forest. They loved each other very much but one day she was bitten by a snake and died abruptly, leaving Orpheus inconsolable.

Orpheus went down to the Underworld to recover her and by his music induced the goddess Persephone and the ferocious guard dog Cerberus to let her go. They allowed Eurydice to return to earth on the condition that Orpheus not look back until both had reached the upper world. Orpheus agreed but when they approached the world of the living, he forgot his promise and looked back. Eurydice immediately vanished and was lost to him forever.

Later, when Orpheus was thinking of his love, meditating and playing music, a band of Thracian women who were were jealous of his love for Eurydice tore him to pieces and cast his head into the river Hebrus.

Orpheu Negro - The film The director of this movie was Marcel Camus. The idea for it came from the Screenplay "Orfeu da Concei‡„o", by Vinicius de Morais. It was made in 1959, and received the grand prize at the Cannes Film Festival. Bruno de Mello and Marpessa Dawn were the main actors. This movie provoked the beginning of the "Bossa Nova" movement. The tragedy of Eurydice's ill fated love for Orpheus forms the perfect setting for the romantic melancholy evoked by "Bossa Nova" music.

Women in his life... The movie begins showing a slum where the women are carrying buckets of water on their heads and, at the same time, dancing happily because it is carnaval time.

Eurydice meets Orpheus in the trolley car, where he's a driver, but although he likes her a lot, he's worried because it is pay day and his fiancee is waiting for him. Her name is Mira.

Eurydice is from a small city and she wants to find her cousin who lives in Rio. Hermes, the messenger of the gods, helps her by giving her directions to the house of her cousin Serafina. After receiving his money, Orpheus goes to the city with Mira to get a marriage license. He is very worried about getting his guitar out of the pawnshop again, and she's worried about buying a cheap engagement ring. Both realize their wishes. Mira has to pay for her fake diamond.

The second meeting of Orpheus and Eurydice happens in Serafina's house. He's playing a guitar and singing. She starts to dance without that he is playing.

Benedito, a boy who believes that Orpheus' song and singing are so beautiful that he can cause the sun to rise, gives Eurydice a good luck charm on a string.

Death appears ... Eurydice goes to her cousin's house because she was afraid of a man, representing Death, who wants to kill her. This man appears when Eurydice is dancing with Orpheus, but Orpheus defends her by fighting capoeira , a kind of African martial art fight.

By this time Mira, Orpheus' fiancee, is very angry because she thinks that she is losing his love.

There is a parade, with loud batuque, drum music, and many people dancing together. Eurydice wears Serafina's costume and dances in her place, in secret. But Mira, discovering the fraud, attacks her. Death is lurking and pursues Eurydice to the trolley terminal in a scary night scene. Orpheus follows them into the trolley barn, hears Eurydice's screams, and sees her hanging by the electric wires to escape Death. The tragedy comes to an end Eurydice is electrocuted and Death knocks Orpheus out and then disappears.

Like the Orpheus from mythology, Orpheus doesn't want to believe that Eurydice is dead and goes in search of her.

Orpheus goes to the bureau of missing persons, located in a typically depressing government building. There he finds only huge rooms filled with paper and nobody to help him. The janitor promises to find a way to find her. They leave the building through its circular stairway, representing the passage down to the underworld, and descend into hell, or the underworld.

Umbanda ... Orpheus is taken to an umbanda session . They pass a gate guarded by a german shepherd dog named "Cerberus" (as in Greek mythology) to attend the session. The Pai de Santo or main priest is a caboclo wearing feathers, a headdress and smoking a cigar. The rite proceeds, with one of the participants going into a trance. A haunting chant and a dance is heard. Orpheus is convinced to sing, join the chanting and call to the spirit of Eurydice. He hears her voice, turns to see where it is coming from, and sees only an old black woman. In this way the legend is fulfilled: "Orpheus when taking Eurydice from the underworld cannot look back or he will lose her". He flees the umbanda meeting.

Outside he meets Hermes who has the documents to retrieve her body from the morgue.

Tragic in of their love ... Beautiful scene at dawn with Orpheus carrying the body of Eurydice in the street and climbing up the hill to the slum. Upon reaching the top, the slum is in flames. An angry, hysterical Mira sees him, throws a rock which hits him on the head. The heroes fall from the mountain to a poetic, tragic death.

Shift to the top of the hill, just at dawn: Benedito and his little friend (the new Orpheus) with Orpheus' old guitar. The friend is urged to try to make the sun come up, he hesitates, plays and does it. A cute little girl comes up, admires him and they all dance a wonderful samba with theme music, with the bay and Rio in the background.

So this is the Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice transported into a tropical setting of Carnaval and macumba in Rio de Janeiro.