Cafe De Los Maestros screens at the Dance:Film Festival
There is a tension between life and death. Between love and hate. Many dances have a feelgood factor, but tango explores the darker recesses of human nature. “What would you do if...?” – and finish the sentence with a situation where you felt threatened. By jealousy, violence or worse. This is the stuff wherein art and imagination can roam. Maybe even let us weigh our options before they become real.
Since walking the darkened streets of a poor suburb in Buenos Aires, I have been entranced by the tango. La Boca. The birthplace of tango. Couples dance on makeshift platforms or on the sidewalks in Sunday afternoon sunshine. But at night, the streets are less safe. You take a taxi to the door of a small nightclub recommended by locals. Two tangueros dance an intimate and captivating love song. It is beyond imagination. The next day, fellow residents at my cheap hotel form a circle as the maestro directs me through the dance. His ravishing partner makes my clumsy feet ethereal. I can hear my heart beat faster. His girl looks at me as if thrown from the bosom of Olympus for me alone. Her skin touching. Her scent heady. And her boyfriend watching.
Tango can transport dancer and observer to a different world. Reality ceases and a new truth seems to take over. Perhaps not in the lukewarm, overly technical tango of the West. Here, the least of tango dancers from Argentina will claim authenticity and call themself a teacher. No. Give me the sexual, emotionally charged atmosphere of Buenos Aires. A world of spiked heels and Romantic intrigue, where it is danced in earnest. Where tango becomes metaphor. This is the world filmmakers adore.
What does the word ‘tango’ mean to you?
If you are a tango dancer, you want films dedicated to tango. For a non-dancing film fan (who finds tango exhilarating), maybe a drama that includes it? For the expert, films that go into technicalities. Mainstream films, specialist films, curios - they are all there, too many to list.
The Tango Lesson is a sumptuous, sophisticated and visually stunning movie. Dancer/director Sally Potter is making a semi-autobiographical film about tango. She travels between Paris and Buenos Aires, learning the new dance and reaches a high standard. But themes of attraction, jealousy, living life-as-if-tomorrow-you-die spill over from the stories behind the dance. It’s a movie that contains some of the most beautiful tango scenes ever filmed. But it also embraces the emotional content of tango itself.
Assassination Tango is homage to the dance by Robert Duvall, containing powerful and romantic dancing. He plays a hit man whose assignment is delayed in Buenos Aires. So he spends his time in the city's milonga ballrooms. He watches and learns tango. This is a great movieif you are just starting to dance it. Duvall’s wife, Argentine dancer Luciana Pedraza, is also in the film (quite stunning!).
Tango, by Carlos Saura, is about a tango dancer again making a film about tango. The story is very much more involved than Potter’s film. The styles includes plenty of performance tango, strikingly lit on special sets.
Café De Los Maestros is for aficionados, a celebration documentary of tango music. Lots of famous names for those who recognise them. The dancing is secondary, but includes scenes in different locations in Buenos Aires.
Tango Bar is a film also best suited for tangueros. Plenty of close-ups of feet, at a speed you can follow, so it doubles as a lesson. Also it is a history lecture of sorts on the cultural influences in Argentina. The film is unfortunately a bit lacklustre in other departments.
If you like your tango as the exotic side dish rather than the main course, plenty of mainstream films include tango spice.
The most famous is probably Moulin Rouge!, where the theatrical drama of dance is heavily emphasised. "We have a dance in the brothels of Buenos Aires. It tells the story of the prostitute and a man who falls in love with her. First, there is desire. Then, passion. Then, suspicion. Jealousy. Anger. Betrayal. When love is for the highest bidder, there can be no trust. Without trust, there can be no love. Jealousy, yes, jealousy will drive you mad.” Watch how the hand placements used in the dance differ slightly from the usual ones, exaggerating the sensation of violence and male domination.
This over-the-top approach to presentation, stagey lighting to heighten the dramatic effect, can also be seen in Chicago (‘Cell Block Tango.’). Nice Bob Fosse choreography too.
You can also see many of your favourite film stars dancing tango. And with varying degrees of success! Antiquarian film lovers look out the first time tango appears in a Hollywood movie: in 1921, Rudolph Valentino is catapulted to fame in The Four Horsemen Of The Apocalypse - but his exaggerated dance style doesn’t win the approval of tango enthusiasts. Fred Astaire performs the tango his own way in Flying Down To Rio. He’s not a very dominant partner, but sweeps and sweet-talks Dolores del Rio away with Orchids In The Moonlight, and it’s a fun scene.
True Lies has Arnie Schwarzenegger looking decidedly more masterful than Astaire as he tangos with Tia Carrere. The tango in his expression doesn’t quite extend to the rest of his body. But they both look gorgeous.
Scent Of A Woman has Al Pacino faring rather better. As a blind former military officer, he tangos with a beautiful woman who captivates him with her perfume. It’s not a perfect dance but it does illustrate an important principle. As one tango writer commenting on the film expressed it: “The tango is the dance of uneducated, unseeing instinct: its nexus is lust: its animation is sexual.”
Shall We Dance, a re-make of a Japanese cult dance movie Shall We Dansu, has Richard Gere sliding through a passable tango scene with Jennifer Lopez. But the nifty editing ensures that nothing too taxing occurs in the footwork department.
Take The Lead has a sadly under-rated Antonio Banderas cutting a tantalisingly hot tango with Katya Virshilas. However many takes it took, the end result is a moving combination of film studio technique and tango. The story takes the bold step of presenting tango on a similar level to hip-hop in order to reach disadvantaged school kids.
One of my favourite tango films just recently is a 20 minute short called Bohemios. Shown at the Dance:Film Festival 2009 in Edinburgh (which also screened Café de Los Maestros) it follows an ageing maestro around the tango bars of La Boca. It is not about fancy steps. Simply, and rather movingly, It is about dancing tango till you die.
The Dance:Film Festival runs in Edinburgh from May 21 to 30. You can read our coverage here and view the full schedule of films and events on the official site.
