Background

Last July, when Mika Kaurismäki was honored with a retrospective tribute at Karlovy Vary, Ziegler Film approached him about making an Erotic Tale. “Can I shoot it in Rio?” was the only question. It’s where Mika hangs out when not in Helsinki - and Marcel Camus’s ORFEU NEGRO (Golden Palm, Cannes 1959) just happens to be one of his favorite films. A few weeks later, while competing at the Moscow film festival with the thriller Condition Red (starring that talented rocksinger-actress Cynda Williams, the female lead in Bob Rafelson’s Wet), Mika presented an exposé of his own erotic version of the Orpheus legend: SAMBOLICO, set in Brazil’s wild, sexy, head-spinning Samba season.

Kari Väänänen - you saw him as the penniless composer Schaunard in Aki Kaurismäki’s La Vie de Bohème (1991) - plays a famous Finnish conductor who ventures onto the Copacabana beach one afternoon after a successful concert premiere and meets a young woman on the run from a brutal pimp. The encounter leads to a sensual journey through Rio’s ludicrous nightbars and into the rhythmic embrace of samba groups preparing for the season’s big contest. The next morning, when the conductor awakens in his hotel room, he’s not quite sure if he’s dreamed it all. As it turns out, the girl really does exist! But is the she a he?

One of Europe’s celebrated cult directors, with an affinity for Godardian nihilism and American B-movies, Mika Kaurismäki had previously shot Amazon (1991), with Kari Väänänen, and Tigrero (1994), with Sam Fuller and Jim Jarmusch, in Brazil. “Rio is my backyard.”

Synopsis

The day after his successful concert performance in Rio de Janeiro, Eric, a Finnish conductor, spends a relaxing afternoon on the Copacabana with a refreshing drink and surrounded by a bevy of girls in bikinis. The appearance of a beautiful young girl, whom he had met in the elevator, lightens the moment - until she runs away in fear of Rudi, a tough accompanied by a pair of threatening companions. Later, Eric meets the girl again at the samba festival, where she dances seductively for his approval. When Rudi appears on the scene, they run off into the night … down dark streets and alleys … into gay nightclubs … and out onto a moonlit beach - where their act of love is interrupted once again …