"Black Orpheus" was, by all accounts, a huge success when it first appeared, winning both the Palme d'Or and the Oscar for Best Foreign Language film but it has become somewhat neglected in recent years. It's not strictly a musical although it boasts a very good score by Luiz Bonfa and Antonio Carlos Jobim as it transposes the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice to Rio during carnival and it was for its score and for director Marcel Camus' superb use of colour, (DoP is Jean Bourgoin) that it became famous. However, the acting and the script leave a lot to be desired and you get the feeling a lot more could have been made of the setting. You may also wonder what all the fuss was about as it is certainly not the masterpiece some people said it was at the time.
Review of Black Orpheus
