"Tango" is a variation of Carlos Saura's flamenco "trilogy" ("Blood Wedding", "Carmen" and "El amor brujo") in the sense that the plot is based on the same basic scheme: a performing company (director, choreographers and performers) plans and rehearses a certain work to be produced in the near future. In each film there are several levels of reality which inter-tangle making sometimes hard to distinguish if in a given moment an actor is talking/acting as an individual or as the character who the actor represents in the production. The resulting ambiguity (not always clarified by Saura) is then part of the understanding of Saura's work. Although other sources of inspiration are possible, Saura' technique may have been influenced by Luis Bunuel and other surrealists who also like to present confusing levels of reality, like the world or reality/dreams/daydreaming/fantasy/flashbacks of Bunuel's "Belle de Jour" or dream /reality in "The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie". Let's remember that Saura admired the works of Bunuel, who as a good surrealist (and Freud follower) refused to admit that there are limits and borderlines between the different levels or layers of reality. In "Tango" Saura has replaced the flamenco dancing of the "trilogy" with tangos and milongas to present us the multilayered world of a film production based on those Argentinean dances. The plot and character development are secondary (and surely perceived as weak and schematic)since the main efforts are centered in the production of elaborate dance sequences. Instead of the average, aging tango dancers preferred in the Broadway production "Tango Argentino", Saura has opted for using in his film stars and good-looking performers who in their majority have extensive ballet training. The main exceptions are the performances by Maestro Juan Carlos Copes (Carlos Nebbia), who in the "milonga" (dancing hall) and in his interpretation of La Cumparsita provides a tango dancing which will surely please even the most refined tango aficionado. Some other sequences will be controversial to the tango connoisseur, like the "lesbian tango" and the male homosexual production number so expertly choreographed and performed by ballet star Julio Bocca. Other sequences are already presented in the film as controversial, like the "desaparecidos" dance sequence which offends some of the "film producers". Like in Saura's "trilogy", the dance sequences in "Tango" will please the dance fanatic, but will seem somewhat long and tedious to the average viewer. Everybody will agree, however, in the exquisite technique of the main dancers, especially Mia Maestro and Cecilia Narova, as well as in the solid acting performance by Miguel Angel Sola as the troubled director. In all, a serious and professional effort by Saura that surely deserves its Oscar nomination as Best Foreign Film and the many other international awards which have already received and will continue to receive in the near future.
