Some time ago a television programme lasting some two hours tried to show us the excitement and colour of Mardi Gras. They failed miserably.
This lovely little film crams In far more of the essence, gaiety and spirit of Rio's great four day carnival and when you've seen it I'll bet you'll say ... let's go to Rio. The film opens with a jet landing at the airport and the commentator telling us that by air and sea people flock to this gigantic party. Four attractive teenagers run to a helicopter and we see aerial shots of Sugar Loaf and the figure of Christ the Redeemer towering 2000 feet above the sea.
A cable car swings across the screen and looking down there are the spaghetti junctions of the local motorways, the mosaic pavements and the bustling people. Shots of Copacabana beach and the tanned bikini clad beauties. Happy people having 'fun in the sun' and partaking of enormous drinks In pineapple halves.
Then a fireworks display and illuminations ala Blackpool. The parade begins and to a Samba beat the hip swinging girls and the strutting dandies parade from dawn to dusk. Costumes are magnificent, swirls of feathers and spangles for those lovely girls. Top hats and glittering suits for the men. I've read somewhere that over the four days of the carnival one year there were seventeen deaths and hundreds injured in fights Inspired by too much rum and coca cola but none of that In this gem of a film. Short but very sweet, sponsored as the end tells us by Peter Stuyvesant .... your passport to smoking pleasure.
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This page was last updated 02 Dec 2002