Black Orpheus

"The happiness of the poor is the great illusion of carnival." (Orpheus, Black Orpheus)

In class we talked about carnivalesque, the idea of two opposites, black and white, good and bad, or like stated in class yin and yang. In Black Orpheus there were several examples of this idea.

The movie starts out in a poor village where there are kids dancing and playing with no shoes on.. Quickly we are swept away to the city where there are large buildings and everything looks clean. While Orpheus and Eurydice travel on the tram they cross a beautiful bridge of arches and then end up in the poor village again. The contrast is very obvious and is drawn upon several times throughout the movie.

Another example is the difference between Eurydice and Mira. Mira is loud, obnoxious, self centered, etc. and Eurydice is the exact opposite. The most interesting part is not that they are opposites but that Orpheus is engaged to Mira but in love with Eurydice. 

Towards the end of the film Orpheus runs after Eurydice to save her but ends up actually killing her, obviously the opposite of what he intended on doing. 

The greatest example in the movie come from a line that Orpheus sings while carrying Eurydice back to the village, and is quoted above. The celebration of carnival is poor people dressing like kings and parading around for all to see. Hence the use of the word carnivalesque to sum up this idea.

After speaking about this in class, and before watching this movie I watched it's trailer, which is incredibly carnivalesque as can be seen.