Tango

by Carlos Saura

Spain - 1998

Monday, June 3rd • 6PM
At Bophana Center

Feature Film - 115mn

Color

CinematographyVittorio Storaro

Music Lalo Schifrin

CastMiguel Ángel Solá, Cecilia Narova, Mía Maestro, Juan Carlos Copes, Carlos Rivarola

GenreDrama - Musical

First ralease1998

SynopsisSet in Buenos Aires, Argentina, the film tells the story of director Mario Suarez’s quest to make the ultimate tango film. Lonely after his wife (one of the film’s stars) has left him, Mario must find the themes that will hold the film together, while simultaneously permitting his musicians and dancers the freedom of expression that is necessary to satisfy the tango-hungry Argentine audience. Things become complicated when Mario falls in love with Elena, a beautiful and talented young dancer who is the girlfriend of the powerful and dangerous Angelo Larroca.

AboutThere is less dancing than usual in Saura’s films. Clearly, he has experts to work with, and the focus on the foot tracing catlike its path on the floor has the flavor of a point newly inculcated, and yet it is appropriate, and not the amateur mistake made by many dance filmmakers of concentrating the camera only on the feet or legs, which misses the whole point of the dance coming from the dancer’s center.
Carlos Saura won many awards among which there are the following ones: Silver Bear in the Berlin Festival for La caza (1966) and for Peppermint Frappé (1967). Special Jury Awards in Cannes for La cousine Angélique (1974) and for Cría cuervos (1976). Also, the film Maman a cent ans (1979) got an Oscar nomination as the best foreign film, and it also won the Special Jury Award at the San Sebastian Festival. Tango was nominated for the Academy Award Best Foreign Language Film and win the Grand Prix Technique at the Cannes Film Festival.

Selective filmography of Carlos Saura
(born in 1932)

1966 – La caza

1975 – Cria cuervos

1981 – Bodas de sangre

1983 – Carmen

2008 - Fados