Carmen Miranda: Bananas Is My Business

Frankly, I found it quite difficult to sit through this "documentary." Re-enactments and psychobabble mar what could have been a fascinating exploration of a film icon.

The genre is one of my favorites, and I have enjoyed attending the IFP Festival in NYC, where documentarians are highlighted.

One hopes to come away from a celluloid, biography viewing experience with a better understanding of the subject. This particular production seemed to meander, and fail to provide an insight into the life of the actress. The Biography Channel could have done a more in-depth analysis, which certainly doesn't say much for this production.

As someone who only knew of Carmen Miranda as a caricature in cartoons and a Halloween costume worn by friends, I found this film very enlightening. Whatever might be missing in the film about the deeper details of her life, it is still an eye-opening documentary that at least shines some light on a real person behind the character. I thought this was a very respectful documentary and perhaps purposefully restrained for that reason. Maybe more could have been done, but I for one am glad that at least this much was there for me to see. I have a new respect for Carmen Miranda and find that I'm motivated now to seek more about her on my own.

This was a very odd documentary. Normally, I enjoy this forum of film. I enjoy learning about a person or events that I normally would never learn about. I love learning about famous people that to the normal eye would have a normal life, but behind the scenes it was nothing but trials and tribulations. The only issue I have is that sometimes it is hard to create a good documentary, or just another episode of E! True Hollywood Stories. That is exactly the line that Carmen Miranda: Bananas is my Business crosses.

This film goes from decent documentary into a slime fest for the "bombshell" beauty. The problem with this film is that the filmmaker takes too many assumptions with Carmen. For example, there are some scenes that were not captured on film when Carmen was alive, so the director chose to go ahead and place an actress (or in this very odd case and ACTOR) in a reenacting role of Carmen. There were several moments of this film where it would skip from filmed Carmen, to this actor Carmen and the director would take certain risks.

These risks should not be taken when creating a documentary. Why? Because again you are crossing a line. You are taking a documentary, one that lives in the world of fiction, and throw in areas of non-fiction. This cannot happen. You cannot jump genres. How is your audience to believe you? After watching some truths from the taped Carmen from her films, I had trouble jumping from one to the other. I couldn't keep track on what the director wanted to show as "real" and what was dramatized. That is definitely no way to create a story. For example, we open this film to Carmen walking around in her bath robe and suddenly falls, we witness the mirror that Carmen is carrying shatter in front of her. Now I know that the director was trying to show that a beauty, concerned most about her appearance, had a mirror (the sheer instrument of vanity) break in front of her. BUT THIS NEVER HAPPENED. I had to remind myself that the director was taking a chance here, causing my stomach to go down south. Can directors of documentaries take these chances?

Can they dabble the line between fiction and non-fiction while trying to tell a "true" story? My answer friends, is NO. But again, all I am is a mere critic, no director of documentaries.

Grade: ** out of *****

As a lover of Brazilian culture, I was rather disappointed by the film, which turns out to be a rather conventional 90's showbiz bio.

Yes, Carmen was exploited and broken behind that headdress. The film did a good job of bringing out the pathos - but

that's hardly a surprise.

The problem is, having done that, it didn't go any further in showing us the real woman behind the mask. The film projects her as nothing but a helpless victim of Hollywood, when her early life clearly indicated a strong and wily character. She must have put up a few fights - both internally and out there - and _this_ is the fascinating stuff. Remember that she was financially independent and emotionally not alone. Although in exile, she was always surrounded by family and, quite often, other Brazilian expatriate friends (among them one of the fathers of Bossa Nova, Vinicius --). She had choices. She didn't have to end that way and yet she did -- chose to marry an American brute and chose to leave Brazil again, right out of convalescence. This is the true mystery, and this film brings us no closer.

In the other direction, the film also failed to place Carmen in context of the development of Brazilian music. Was she a true artist, or merely a star - co-opting music of the poor for the consumption of a more respectable audience? And what is her true legacy as Brazil's "cultural ambassador"? Brazil may have rejected her, but it has never forgotten or ignored her (the funeral scene proved that). Yet once again we

had no idea what Carmen means to an average Brazilian today.

Watching this film, I kept getting reminded of Edith Piaf. Like her, Carmen's life has enough paradoxes for two or three movies. Regrettably, we are given less than one.

Very good biographical documentary on Portuguese-born Brazilian Broadway and Hollywood star Carmem Miranda. From her childhood in Rio de Janeiro to the beginning of her artistic career, from her first music trips do Buenos Aires to her success in the United States, from her partners and friends in Rio and New York to her failed marriage and death, from the criticisms against her to her worldwide lagacy, the informative and well paced film addresses every important single issue about the great bombshell superstar and the Maria do Carmo (Carmem Miranda's true name) behind her.