One of the rare Western films to take advantage of the spectacular setting of the temples at Angkor in Cambodia, L’Oiseau de Paradis is directed by Marcel Camus. The tale itself is relatively simple. A beautiful dancer has two admirers – one is a young worker whom she has only met by accident, and the other is an unscrupulous businessman. The worker had been training as a Buddhist monk and as his interest in the dancer and the businessman’s pursuit of the woman develop, the dancer and the former monk end up at the archaeological site of Angkor. There, Buddhists still worship in the temples and it is in this setting that the businessman kills them both. Reincarnation being accepted as truth in Cambodia, the story implies that the ill-fated young couple would be joined together in the future.

1.47GB | 1h 31m | 921×576 | mkv

https://nitro.download/view/9C8717F1B9AC6B7/L’oiseau_De_Paradis_AKA_Dragon_Sky_(Marcel_Camus_1962)_(1).mkv
https://nitro.download/view/A1547836EEE6952/L’oiseau_De_Paradis_AKA_Dragon_Sky_(Marcel_Camus_1962)_(1).srt

Language(s):French
Subtitles:English

The post Marcel Camus – L’oiseau de paradis AKA Bird of Paradise AKA Dragon Sky (1962) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Screen: Legend Retold; ‘Black Orpheus’ Bows at the Plaza
By BOSLEY CROWTHER
Published: December 22, 1959

ALL tangled up in the madness of a Rio de Janeiro carnival, full of intoxicating samba music, frenzied dancing and violent costumes, the Frenchman Marcel Camus presents us a melancholy tale in his color film, “Black Orpheus” (“Orfeu Negro”), which came to the Plaza yesterday.

It is a tragic story of a Negro chap and a Negro girl who meet at the time of the annual blowout, fall suddenly and rapturously in love, whirl through the night in a furious revel and fall off a cliff in the dawn. At least, the fellow falls off the cliff, holding the dead body of the girl in his arms. She has been killed the previous evening while trying to escape a scoundrel in a skeleton costume.

According to word from Paris and a somewhat involved program note, this samba drama is supposed to be based on the classic legend of Orpheus and Eurydice. Some parallels may be detected, but to us this seems an innocent conceit, unless you want to claim all sad love stories come from the same original source.

The parallels here are that Orpheus plays a guitar instead of a lute, his Eurydice is killed in fleeing a suitor and Orpheus goes to the morgue (instead of Hades) in search of her. Otherwise it is an arbitrary fable of love foiled in the midst of gaiety, not very well played by its main performers and therefore lacking in real emotional punch.

Breno Mello makes a handsome, virile Orpheus who glistens when covered with sweat, but he performs the role more as a dancer than as an actor trying to show a man in love. No real conviction of passion comes out of his furious posturing. A suspicion of affectation inevitably intrudes.

Conversely, the girl who plays Eurydice is an American dancer, Marpessa Dawn, and she conveys more forthright emotion than does the non-terpsichorean man. A pretty, frank face and a gentle manner that suggest absolute innocence gather an aura of wistfulness about her that filters down into a melancholy mood. This, at least, is appropriate and helpful for the accidental tragedy that ensues.

But it really is not the two lovers that are the focus of interest in this film; it is the music, the movement, the storm of color that go into the two-day festival. M. Camus has done a superb job of getting the documented look not only of the over-all fandango but also of the build-up of momentum the day before.

He has got much more of a sense of turmoil in his minor characters—in the people surrounding the lovers and the wild, abandoned mobs in the streets. Lea Garcia is especially provoking as the loose-limbed cousin of the soft Eurydice, and Lourdes de Oliveira is lissome and wanton as the cast-off fiancée of Orpheus. Swarms of sinuous girls and children shimmy and race to the samba beat, which is insistent through most of the footage. That’s what makes the picture alive.

Whether it proves what is concluded—that the poor are doomed to tragedy—is a point we strongly question. But it certainly does fill the ears and eyes.

The language spoken, incidentally, is Brazilian Portuguese, which is translated in English subtitles that completely lack the samba beat. A cat with a cool vocabulary should have been turned loose on them.

1.44GB | 1:47:44 | 592×432 | avi

https://nitro.download/view/104B163539CC4EB/Black_Orpheus.part1.rar https://nitro.download/view/8A1CCAA90FF341A/Black_Orpheus.part2.rar

Language(s):Portuguese
Subtitles:English idx/sub

The post Marcel Camus – Orfeu Negro AKA Black Orpheus [+Extras] (1959) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

The last theatrical film by Marcel Camus based on the identically named novel by Jorge Amado. Set in Bahia, the film presents three interconnected stories set amongst prostitutes, cardsharpers, pimps, drunks and homeless Don Juans and Messalinas in the teeming life of a tropical port.

Otalia de Bahia.1976.576p.BDRip-AVC.ZONE.mkv

General
Container:  	Matroska
Runtime: 	2 h 1 min
Size: 	2.96 GiB
Video
Codec: 	x264
Resolution: 	958x576 
Aspect ratio:  	5:3
Frame rate: 	24.000 fps
Bit rate: 	3 000 kb/s
BPP: 	0.227
Audio
#1:  	French 1.0ch AC-3 @ 224 kb/s
#2:  	Portuguese 1.0ch AC-3 @ 224 kb/s

https://nitro.download/view/E4229C821DF4479/Otalia_de_Bahia.1976.576p.BDRip-AVC.ZONE.mkv

Language(s):French, Portuguese
Subtitles:English, French

The post Marcel Camus – Os Pastores da Noite AKA Othalia de Bahia (1975) first appeared on Cinema of the World.