Luiz Melodia’s trajectory

OSinger Luiz Melodia did not belong to any specific musical genre, nor was he part of a group or movement. He was a unique artist, with a singular path, who died in August 2017 without leaving a legacy in Brazilian music. Therefore, any attempt to frame him in a biopic would be an inglorious task. But the premiere of the documentary Luiz Melodia – In the heart of Brazilin April, at the festival It’s all true, showed that director Alessandra Dorgan understood the challenge. Instead of struggling to create a work with the intention of explaining who Melodia was in a professorial tone, Dorgan made a film that managed to capture the artist’s indomitable spirit.

One of the wisest decisions was to let Melodia himself narrate his journey. With impeccable audio and image research, Dorgan made it possible for him to talk about his childhood on Morro de São Carlos, in the bohemian neighborhood of Estácio, his multiple artistic influences, his early career as a poet in the company of Waly Salomão, Torquato Neto and Hélio Oiticica, until he reached his first steps in MPB composing for Gal Costa (in the song Black Pearl) and Maria Bethânia (in the song Estácio, Holly Estácio). It is richer to hear Melodia reflecting on himself than if the documentary had resorted to Nelson Motta to do so. It’s stronger to hear him talk about how record companies forced him to record samba albums and position himself as a samba artist, as if that were the only possibility for a black artist in Brazil. His musicality, which mixes jazz, blues, bolero and also samba, is explained by him, in his own terms. It’s moving to hear him talk about moments of weakness, like when he became a very popular artist with his daily voice on the soap opera soundtrack. Capital sin singing Misguided Youth, and how it took away his privacy and made him withdraw from fame. Very scared by his overwhelming popularity, he says: “I’m a man who goes to bars.”

Helena Maura’s editing leads us to a safe and accurate chain of the artist’s trajectory and thoughts. But this security and assertiveness is deeply aligned with the proposal of not imprisoning the figure of Melodia. She puts together a film that runs like a tour, a free and untethered journey through the singer’s trajectory. Dodging around the world so as not to submit to labels, drawers, and impositions, the poet from Estácio ended up gaining a reputation as a cursed, underground, rebel. In the film he explains it simply: he just wanted to be an artist with control over his own art.