No flinching from the dark side

Transposing the tragic legend of Orpheus from Greece to Rio de Janeiro and adding an all-black cast was something of a risk back in 1959.

But Marcel Camus made a film so full of colour that, even though some of the exoticism now seems dated, you go along with it willingly.

Camus celebrates more than the universality of the story. He also points up the culture of a Brazil that positively seethes with energy well before Carnival night.

It may be sentimental in places, but its visual splendour brooks no argument, and there's no flinching from the dark side of the final tragedy of its lovers.

Black Orpheus (Orfeu Negro)
Cert: PG