The Spirit of Samba, The Black Music of Brazil (1982)

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The Spirit of Samba, The Black Music of Brazil (1982)

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Despite a cover that promises a wild ride through Carnival in Brazil and performances by Gilberto Gil and Milton Nascimento , this is really a political documentary about the poverty-stricken lifestyle of black Brazilians and the ways their pure music, samba, has been corrupted and co-opted by the music establishment of Brazil.

The key to understanding this tendentious hour-long documentary film is in its subtitle, and the dogmatic assertion that samba is a "black" music that has somehow been appropriated and exploited by Brazil's "white" population. Although the film has some good material, including sit-down interviews with Gilberto Gil, Milton Nascimento, Chico Buarque and Leci Brandao, the thrill of seeing them all in action is severely undercut by the grinding, joyless narration, as French director Jeremy Marre intones gravely about how samba is the music of the poor and exploited black underclass, etc. etc. etc. He cuts away from scenes of street parties and MPB concerts to military parades held by the dictatorship that was still in power when the film was made (albeit in its waning days; the military relinquished control of the country in 1985) and makes the seemingly contradictory assertions that Brazil's vast Carnival celebrations are merely a bread-and-circuses sop, a pointless bacchanal designed to placate the nation's poor, and, simultaneously, that samba has been stolen from the masses, and that they can no longer hear their own music…

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The Spirit of Samba, The Black Music of Brazil (1982)

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The Spirit of Samba, The Black Music of Brazil (1982)

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The Spirit of Samba, The Black Music of Brazil (1982)

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The Spirit of Samba, The Black Music of Brazil (1982)

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The Spirit of Samba, The Black Music of Brazil (1982)

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