Tango (1998)

Mario Suarez is a forty-something tango artist, whose wife Laura has left him. He leaves his apartment and starts preparing a film about tango.

Director:

Carlos Saura

Writer:

Carlos Saura

Stars:

Miguel Ángel Solá, Cecilia Narova, Mía Maestro

Nominated for 1 Oscar. Another 8 wins & 10 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Miguel Ángel Solá	...	Mario Suárez
Cecilia Narova	...	Laura Fuentes
Mía Maestro	...	Elena Flores
Juan Carlos Copes	...	Carlos Nebbia
Carlos Rivarola	...	Ernesto Landi
Sandra Ballesteros	...	María Elman
Óscar Cardozo Ocampo	...	Daniel Stein
Enrique Pinti	...	Sergio Lieman
Julio Bocca	...	Julio Bocca
Juan Luis Galiardo	...	Angelo Larroca
Martín Seefeld	...	Andrés Castro
Ricardo Díaz Mourelle	...	Waldo Norman
Antonio Soares Junior	...	Bodyguard 1 / Dancer
Ariel Casas	...	Antonio
Carlos Thiel	...	Dr. Ramírez

Storyline

Set in Buenos Aires, Argentina, the film tells the story of director Mario Suarez's quest to make the ultimate tango film. Lonely after his wife (one of the film's stars) has left him, Mario must find the themes that will hold the film together, while simultaneously permitting his musicians and dancers the freedom of expression that is necessary to satisfy the tango-hungry Argentine audience. Things become complicated when Mario falls in love with Elena, a beautiful and talented young dancer who is the girlfriend of the powerful and dangerous Angelo Larroca, an investor in the picture. And Mario's creative vision is challenged by his investors when he plans a scene that recreates Argentina's dark years of political suppression and "disappearances".

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Plot Keywords:

female nudity | topless female nudity | female full rear nudity | barefoot woman | sex scene | 

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Taglines:

Never leave me.

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Genres:

Drama | Musical

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated PG-13 for sensuality, some disturbing images and brief language

Details

Country:

Spain Argentina

Language:

Spanish

Release Date:

12 February 1999 (USA)

Also Known As:

Tango

Filming Locations:

Buenos Aires, Federal District, Argentina

Box Office

Budget:

ESP 700,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend USA:

$78,315, 14 February 1999, Limited Release

Gross USA:

$1,687,311, 11 July 1999

Company Credits

Production Co:

Adela Pictures, Alma Ata International Pictures S.L., Argentina Sono Film S.A.C.I.

Technical Specs

Runtime:

115 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.00 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Official submission of Argentina for the 'Best Foreign Language Film' category of the 71st Academy Awards in 1999.

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Quotes

Elena Flores: We're breaking up.
Mario Suárez: Why? If I may ask...
Elena Flores: We don't understand eachother. I'm not easy.
[laughs]

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Connections

Featured in The 71st Annual Academy Awards (1999)

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Soundtracks

Corazón de oro
Written by Francisco Canaro, Jesús Fernández Blanco
Performed by the dance ensemble

User Reviews

Making Film Dance

I love this stuff. This film has weaknesses, but the ambition is so grand one can forgive, at least in deciding to watch.

The general problem is mixing film and dance. Rarely, oh so rarely is it done well. The stock choices are two: either film a dance more or less as an audience would see it, or to incorporate dance into the theatric presentation as a device. Either way, the audience is necessarily at a distance. And that's the problem: dance is human, to watch it (I'm talking about a performance here) you intimately participate in the space built and folded by the dancers. So by definition, most film/dance mixtures turn flat.

The solution here is to create an openly recursive storyline, mixing the dance as sometimes a filmed performance or rehearsal, sometimes "real" life, sometimes dreams or visions or imaginings. This combined with a never-rooted camera -- which sometimes plays the role of a character itself -- makes the audience part of the dance, and adds depth. The sets are designed to confuse: sloped floors, mirrors (used liberally) distortion, translucent screens and so on, further breaking the "performance" mold. On these terms alone, this is an intelligently conceived film.

I cannot say the same for the dancing proper. I think the film suffers from sticking too close to an Argentine palette, so the music and dance lacked breadth, and ultimately became repetitive. Whether the dancers were authentic, I cannot say. There certainly were exciting moments for me, but the dancing wasn't sufficiently vibrant to carry all of the scenes.

The Latin flavor was intriguing in the large: that the director would attempt such a self-referential conflation: national horror; angst of aging; layering of creation. Such a project would be considered outrageous in the US long before it is explored. And the Latin character was also interesting in the small: bigbottomed dancers and dumb, dependent women talking about how intelligent and independent they are.

Check this out. Not for the dance, but for a solution to filming dance.