As one who loved and and read and saw the old version, Orfeu Negro, and who has lived on the songs for 40 years or so, I can say that this is a really good film. It is superior to the old one in many ways but what it gains in sophistication, it loses in enchantment. Never the less, it is a major and almost successful effort at a peep into a reality one cannot even begin to imagine. It is also admirable for the respect with which every single one of the inhabitants of the hopeless world of the "Favelas" are depicted, down to the last of the "evil characters" or the shifty one whose crying scene closes the film.
It is also a beautiful love story and the recognizable connection to the Greek original is also remarkable.
It is also a beautiful love story and the recognizable connection to the Greek original is also remarkable.