Samba

The Brazilian singer Laura Monteiro (Sara Montiel) is murdered in her dressing-room by her jealous lover João Fernandes de Oliveira (Fosco Giachetti) that discovered that she was cheating him with Assis (Carlos Alberto) and she intends to escape from him traveling to Buenos Aires with Assis.

Meanwhile, Belén Moreira (Sara Montiel), who lives in Favela do Salgueiro and is a dead ringer of Laura, goes to Copacabana with her boyfriend Paulo (Marc Michel). Two gangsters of a gang that smuggles precious stones sewn in Carnival costumes see Belén and they force the President of the Salgueiro Samba School to invite Belén to perform Chica da Silva in the Carnival parade. Her costume is prepared with real precious stones to be smuggled to Europe.

"Samba" is a kitsch, tacky and funny stereotypical view of Rio de Janeiro by Hollywood. A couple of years ago I saw "Olhar Estrangeiro", a documentary by Brazilian director Lúcia Murat that made a great research about the clichés and stereotypes of the cinema industry about Brazil and Rio de Janeiro through footages of about eighteen movies entwined with interviews of personalities related to them.

"Samba" has a completely messy and non-sense story and shows Rio de Janeiro in an parallel universe created by Hollywood, where Brazilian speak Spanish instead of Portuguese; Sara Montiel is a mulatto with the incredible name Belén that does not exist in our vocabulary in Portuguese and sings samba in the rhythm of rumba. The landscape of Rio de Janeiro in the initial credits is very old, probably many years before 1965.

The good points that make this film worth watching are the nostalgic view of Rio de Janeiro, Brasília and Bahia in 1965; the musical numbers by Sara Montiel in a strong accent in Spanish; the credited and uncredited cameos of the actors Antonio Pitanga, Grande Otelo, Wilson Grey and the singer Ciro Monteiro, all of them dubbed in Spanish. My vote is five.

Title (Brazil): "Samba"