Film: Black Orpheus (1959)
I've always really liked the myth of Orpheus, for some reason. Ever since I saw those films by Jean Cocteau. The story of Orpheus and Eurydice itself and its tragedy, its price for finding a Herculean challenge within the limits of romantic love. So I got to like the movie more because of the adaptation material. And so I don't necessarily think it's such a bad adaptation of the myth. In fact, it is not as "subversive" in narrative as Cocteau's, obviously. However, the construction of its own universe from the perspective of carnival brings power to the construction of history. That would be, if this weren't a stereotype repeated countless times by Eurocentric perspectives, which for us here in Brazil manages to devalue the work a lot. All the problems, underlie the making of the work from a Eurocentric perspective on our country, for the time being consolidating the writing based on classic colonialism. With the saddest thing, for me, being the terreiro analogy with Greek hell, it's hateful and disrespectful, racist and all. What is most vexing is the constant reminder that "this" is one of the few things one can look for in a national film entirely starring black men and women on screen at that time in the 1950s, living an uncompromising artistic narrative. At least I don't know so many other productions. This is due to the fact that in 1958 it was just 70 years since the decree to end institutionalized enslavement in the country. Still the continued exploitation and marginalization of the black population until the present day, together with the material costs of audiovisual production at the time, it delimited which agents were accepted for the production of this type of art. During the work, I reflected while the police started to shove people into their car in the middle of Carnival for no apparent reason at all - in which Orpheus is not arrested just because one of the policemen, who was black, knew him. I think, it is not an act of critical revelation, maybe for some unwary it is, but this is the daily life of the community devastated by the material reality of repression. Having said all that, the narrative does not contribute in almost anything to the reflection of the effective of marginalized black existence, and in a certain way it pastichizes with a white and European vision. Still, as a black man in Brazil, it is interesting to see my equals on the scene, living narratives in a time that is now distant - almost 70 years - when there were few audiovisual national cinema in color and cinematographically delightful in this way.