Necropolis Symphony

Juliana Rojas's 2014 Brazilian film tells, in the form of a musical, the story of Deodato, who starts work as an apprentice at a cemetery in São Paulo. The job of re-registering abandoned graves brings him up against both the bureaucracy and the world of the dead, and meanwhile he falls in love with a new colleague. Rojas's choice is to treat death without weighing it down: the songs are about cemetery registers, the fear of losing a job, and how long a body remains. That odd combination is the film's originality. The budget is small, the acting natural and the musical numbers deliberately modest. For some viewers the tone may stay too cool. Who it's for: viewers interested in Brazilian independent cinema and unusual musicals. Who it's not for: anyone wanting showy musical numbers, or unwilling to see death handled in a light register.