Tango DVD Review:

Tango tells the story of Mario, a film director in the middle of one of his major dance projects. Estranged from his wife (a lead performer in his show), suffering a mid-life crisis, and confused how to finish his film Mario is in turmoil. He attempts to resolve this by falling in love with another, Elena, his new young prodigy, a dangerous femme fatale due to her romantic attachments to the local mafia boss.

Stylistically this film is magnificent. Much of the individuality in Sauras films comes through the use of lighting, often using silhouettes, shadows and various bright colours indicating the mood of the scenes. In the world of the set, which takes almost the whole focus of the film, Saura uses simple methods to create tension and drama. The outskirts of this world are almost always cast in total darkness giving a natural intensity almost all of the time, there is nothing outside this world of dance.

Having said this the set is very spacious. Many long shots are used in this vast and generally open sound set. This is another common trait of a Saura film; his style often attributed to being influenced by the Italian Neo-realism films, whose long wide-angled shots were intended to encourage the audience to choose what they want to look at, rather than being told. Perhaps the most mainstream film which used this technique was Citizen Kane.

When a dance sequence commences, all of the focus is drawn to it. Often everything is filtered down to a box, light quickly fades away from the sides, framing the dancers who are up-lit from behind in a passion-inducing vivid colour. The dancers are cast in silhouettes, striking black figures cutting themselves from behind, showing the sharpness and precision of their movement; a real glamorisation and celebration of dance. These sequences are striking, accompanied by either diagetic music or the harsh 'heart-beat' of the dancers fiery tapping feet, it is difficult not to get absorbed by the moment.

The in-film dance scenes blend in with the actual narrative, depicting Mario's visions smoothly progressing in-between the dramas of his own life. They are put together in fantasies, Mario’s distant glares depicting his thoughts, and as the camera takes hold of Mario's gaze the audience is subject to a point-of-view shot of Mario’s dream coming to life. This can become quite confusing, but it is in this confusion that the film draws an extremely gauging ambiguous ending; What exactly was fantasy, what was reality?
The final shots add to this confusion, an unusual ending where the audience is left looking into a reflection of the camera which they have been looking through. Behind this is a theatrical backdrop of the open sky, a very pleasing visual confusing and thought-provoking just as films should be.

All elements are used effectively. Perhaps characterisation is minimal, we don’t know much about anyone, not even the main protagonist Mario. The inclusion of his wife is seemingly pointless other than her being used to draw a distinct comparison between Mario, and the Mafia boss Larroca. Some of the dance sequences also seem a little pointless; Saura perhaps is more concerned with showing dance due to his own background and maybe only included a narrative structure in order to get financing. Who knows? Cinematography is exceptional, as is the editing of dance sequences. Saura using themes such as focus on feet, eyes (drawing his characters' secret passions), the blend between fantasy and reality, shadows/silhouettes and the use of icons such as mirrors.

This is a decent film. Perhaps one of its major drawbacks are errors in syntax and spelling in the subtitles, though few and far between they ARE there and as a non Spanish-speaking person I did find it quite annoying.

Chris Horsnell

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