Carlos Saura continues his remarkable series of musical films, shifting camp from his native Spain to Argentina, and swapping one musical tradition for another. (The man in charge of the music per se is the long-time Hollywood composer Lalo Schifrin, who we are apt to forget was born in Buenos Aires.) Saura has taken with him on his voyage many of the same techniques and devices developed in Flamenco, together with the same cameraman, Vittorio Storaro: the use of lighted screens, projected slides, dance-studio mirrors, on a hermetically sealed soundstage, an artificially controlled background against which to display the art of the tango. The colors, the fabrics, the bodies -- every visual element that comes into play comes there by invitation only. Nothing stumbles in by accident. Place settings and seating arrangements, as it were, are painstakingly thought out. The camera itself is solid, steady, even-keeled, unobtrusive, but never stiff and never sedentary, getting great variety in angle, composition, closeness, while always scrupulously maintaining its role as observer. A knowledgeable, an appreciative observer. It does not try to join in on the dance, as so many cameras do, with an effect more akin to motion sickness than to visceral excitement. Saura has here set up shop as far as possible from the MTV generation of directors. A cool marksman in opposition to a panicky gang of Uzi users, he makes every shot count: no fuss, no mess, no misses. The fictional elements are simple in the extreme: a film director, not unlike Saura, in preparation for the ultimate film on the tango (the soulful Miguel Angel Sola is younger than Saura, but hobbling around on a bum leg and a walking stick, he is similarly beyond his dancing days); the director's ex-wife and current lead actress (the majestic Cecilia Narova); the dewy ingenue and soon-to-be girlfriend (the sylphish Mia Maestro); and the dangerous gangster who has invested money in the project and has designs of his own on the ingenue. More than just simple, these elements could be said to be trite. But if they were, they would still be perfectly in line with the conventions of the genre. No one complains about a lack of character complexity in a Fred Astaire musical. (1998) — Duncan Shepherd
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