Tango (1998)

New York Times
"...Thrilling....TANGO offers transfixingly beautiful glimpses of the dance and all the wide range of emotions it can conjure..." 02/12/1999 p.E29

Box Office
"...TANGO demonstrates Storaro's full mastery of cinematic light and color..." 11/01/1998 p.152

USA Today
"...Carlos Saura's Oscar nominee for best foreign language film sways to a tune of its own....An elaborate affair....Assuredly photographed..." 02/12/1999 p.8E

Chicago Sun-Times
"...Visually beautiful, it is also ravishing as a musical..." 03/26/1999 p.31

New York Times 0 of 10
It's no slight to the lovers seen in Carlos Saura's thrilling Tango to say that the kissing seen here is less torrid than the dancing. As in Flamenco, Saura means to capture the essence of a dazzling dance tradition, and he does so in a film that wafts dreamily through countless forms of tango magic. As shot by Vittorio Storaro with all the nuance and fluidity such an undertaking demands, Tango offers transfixingly beautiful glimpses of the dance and all the wide range of emotions it can conjure. This Argentinian-Spanish co-production is a very deserving recipient of a best foreign film Oscar nomination this year. Saura doesn't need much of a plot here, not with Storaro's visual agility and the spirit of an All That Jazz to capture the spirit of the dance and its erotic energy. All he needs is a moody central character -- a director, of course -- who starts to plan an elaborate tango production while his ideas visibly unfold around him. The handsome, brooding Mario Suarez (Miguel Angel Sola) has only to turn on a wind machine on an empty set, for instance, to send costumes swaying, bring to life a dressing room full of beautiful women and send two of them into a tango of taunting seduction. Using screens, silhouettes, color filters and at one point even choreography that simulates the reign of terror in a police state, the film finds artful ways to turn each tango encounter into something new... And as part of the production being staged, the film includes a rousing gang tango danced by two groups of men, West Side Story-style. Two male soloists dance a fiery duet as the film, ever seeking new ways to emphasis the dance's sensuality, hears nothing but the rustle of costumes and the maneuvering of feet. While Sally Potter's Tango Lesson struggled hard for a pretext and kept its director tiresomely at center stage, this film enlists a variety of different dancers to color its different scenes. Eyes locked, bodies tensed, moves in perfect unison, they need only display this dance's hypnotic blend of liquidity and fury, only revel in its dizzying complexity and split-second timing, to burn up the screen. - Janet Maslin
 
Newsday 0 of 10
A sumptuous buffet for the eyes, with dance routines given lavish colors and imaginative staging. And yet the dancing and the music by Lalo Schifrin has captivated you so much by then that you don't care what flimsy excuse is concocted for their existence. - Gene Seymour