Tango

The tango is a celebration of courtship display. No dance has been devised that is sexier. Carlos Saura, the Spanish director of such musical classics as "Blood Wedding", has written a film within a film that succeeds through his instinctive feel for innovation. Visually exhilarating, the story follows traditional lines... up to a point. Fortysomething theatre director (Miguel Angel Sola) suffers a crisis of confidence after his wife (Cecilia Narova), a famous dancer, leaves him for another man.

He throws himself into an ambitious new film about the history of tango in Buenos Aires and becomes involved with a 24-year-old dancer (delectable newcomer, Mia Maestro), who is the mistress of the project's chief backer, an alleged Mafia boss.

The plot is less vital than the music, dance and cinematography. Saura has an artist's eye and a romantic's heart. The logical and theatrical do not exactly cohabit. They touch fins. Dance is an expression of the sensual, as film is an illusion of real life.