The Southwest Film Center kicked off its new season with two classic films, each monumentally important in film history.
Brazilian Marcel Camus' "Orfeo Negro," which translates to "Black Orpheus," and French filmmaker Jean-Luc Goddard's "A bout de soufflÇ," which translates to "Breathless," make for an excellent weekend for any foreign film buff.
Marcel Camus' "Black Orpheus" is pure Brazilian mastery. Set in late '50s Rio de Janeiro, the Oscar-winning "Orfeo Negro" retells the tragic story of Orpheus and Eurydice. Bruno Mello, who plays Orpheus, and Marpessa Dawn, who plays Eurydice, are the beautiful couple that fall in love, of course, despite Orpheus' engagement to the fiery Mira, passionately played by Lourdes de Oliviera. Amid the revelry of Carnival, the Brazilian grandaddy of Mardi Gras, Eurydice disguises herself as Serafina, Eurydice's cousin and Mira's friend, to elude Mira and find Orpheus. Rio's crown jewel, a singer/songwriter/lady's man, Orpheus can have his pick of any woman. Destiny chooses Eurydice and the two end up together, but death intervenes. Orpheus's protÇgÇ, Benedito, played by Jorge Dos Santos, delivers a moving performance. Lea Garcia, who plays Serafina, provides much needed comic relief during the tragic story.
Beauty, life, love, the appreciation of everything that is wonderful - that is the brilliance of "Orfeo Negro." Two of the most prominent Brazilian composers, Luis Bonfa and Antonio Carlos Jobim, of "Girl from Ipanema" fame, collaborated for an intoxicating musical experience. Brazilian music was popular in the '60s and this film started it all. For fans of the bossa nova beat, Camus' classic is a must.
The other weekend film was "Breathless," and "other" is exactly the right word to describe Jean-Luc Goddard's style. A pioneer in the avant-garde, Goddard's "Breathless," starring the brutish yet appealing Jean-Paul Belmondo as Michel Poiccard, a thug on the run from the police, and an Audrey Hepburn-meets-Mia Farrow ingÇnue Jean Seberg as Patricia Fancchini, an American journalist, was the first in a series of French New Wave films that changed movie making forever.
The 1959 release is jazzy and improvisational and takes the audience from a countryside shoot-out to surreal romantic moments in the bathroom to the beautifully filmed streets of Paris.
As the story goes, Michel needs money to take his girlfriend, Patricia, away from Paris, where he is presumably a wanted man, to Italy. After stealing a car and shooting a cop after a chase scene - definitely not your typical "Gone in 60 Seconds" sequence, Michel is the most wanted man in Paris. He meets up with Patricia, a freelance reporter for the New York Herald-Tribune, and the two begin their confusing and bizarre romance. Permeating sexual images, double identities and an inimitable Belmondo make "Breathless" a landmark film. Continuous jazz with a haunting and mysterious vibraphone dominates the theme to the soundtrack of Goddard's masterpiece. Every member of the audience on Saturday evening, which was only about 20 people because of the inclement weather, was certainly left "Breathless." If you can stand reading subtitles and enjoy good art, then see this film.
The remainder of the Southwest Film Center season is chock full of goodies such as the remake of "Black Orpheus," called "Orfeo." Asian films "Nonstop" and "The Hole" will run this weekend. Give your money to UNM, not Century Rio, and learn something new.
