Carmen Miranda: Bananas is My Business (1995)

Original title

Carmen Miranda: Bananas Is My Business

Directed by

Helena Solberg

Genre

biographical film, music documentary film

Country

Brazil, United Kingdom, United States

Runtime

1h 31m

Rating

7.4 of 10 from 10 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

A documentary that tells the story of Carmen Miranda, from her rise to fame in Brazil to her Hollywood career as a symbol of Latin American spirit. It mixes interviews with people who knew her and fantasy sequences that recreate moments from her life.

informativenostalgicbittersweetreverentreflectivefantasy-tingedpersonaldocumentary-style

What happens

Carmen Miranda: Bananas is My Business is a 1995 documentary filmed and directed by Helena Solberg. This documentary chronicles the life and career of Carmen Miranda, Hollywood's symbol of Latin American spirit in the 1940s. The documentary tells her life story in a series of stages, beginning with her roots and rise to stardom in her home country of Brazil, her transition and development as a performer in the United States, first on Broadway in New York City, then in the film industry after she signed with 20th Century Fox in Los Angeles, and her later years in life, before her death and her return to Brazil. Helena Solberg uses two different film styles, biography and directorial reverie, in which Solberg uses actor Erick Barretos to “resurrect Carmen Miranda in several fantasy sequences. Helena Solberg's attitudes shift throughout the documentary from awe-struck child to empathetic and forgiving Brazilian woman, which she uses to represent the contradictory subplots of Carmen Miranda's life. Alongside the fantasy like resurrection of Miranda, Solberg accompanies her documentary with multiple interviews with Carmen Miranda's friends and family, like her sister, her first boyfriend, the guitarist Laurindo Almeida, samba song-writer Synval Silva, Cesar Romero, and Alice Faye. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

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