Julio Bocaa and Carlos Rivarola appear in "Tango."

MOVIE INFORMATION

With 10 as a must-see, we give this film a: Stars: Miguel Angel Sola, Juan Luis Galiardo, Mia Maestro and Cecilia Narova Director: Carlos Saura Rated: PG-13, for sexual situations Length: 115 minutes, in Spanish with English subtitles

ROCHESTERCRITIQUE

Having seen this film, how would you rate it? 10 5 9 4 8 3 7 2 6 1

By Eleanor O'Sullivan
Gannett News Service

(March 12, 1999) -- Tango is one of those movies that doesn't always make sense but is impossible to take your eyes off. It has been photographed by Vittorio Storaro (Apocalypse Now') in a compelling style that carries the film through oddball twists and turns and farfetched political allegories.

Director-writer Carlos Saura celebrates the tango through a love triangle: Filmmaker Mario finds the perfect leading lady, Elena, who is living with a volatile mobster, Angelo. Inevitably, Mario falls in love with Elena, which propels her to a starring role in his film about --yes -- the tango, and ignites a struggle between Mario and Angelo, and infuriates Mario's ex-wife, a stunning dancer named Laura.

Saura plays out these complications off the set but even more effectively, on the dance floor. The tango is the perfect metaphor for love's rocky road. Its supple, suggestive moves and hints of something darker -- if you didn't know better, you'd think the dancers were trying to inflict bodily harm on one another -- adroitly mirror the messy human drama.

Have choreographers Ana Maria Steckelman and Carlos Rivarola taken cues from the late Bob Fosse, or was Fosse a tango fan? The Tango dancers mesh the native dance with material that looks amazingly similar to Fosse's landmark choreography.

Director Saura (Carmen) can be too ambitious: He wants his movie to have political and social relevance and to be a delicious dance movie and to be sexy, too. Am I imagining it or is there a Death Squad Dance? Further, mingling the reel with the real and dreams with the actual is distracting. You can applaud Saura for wanting to create more than airhead entertainment, but the going gets heavy-handed.

Still, Saura's cast is great looking and several performers are top notch. Cecilia Narova's Laura is one brilliant dancer and she strikes me as a woman not to be trifled with. Mia Maestro's Elena is lovely but her dancing can't match Narova's sturdy athleticism.

With his intriguing mixture of sensuality and vulnerability, Sola reminded me of Marcello Mastroianni, which is a very good thing.

And the indefatigable composer Lalo Schifrin, 66, is still around, writing hard-edged music that is a neat fit for the dance. A Buenos Aires native, Schifrin's music gives Tango just the right tone. Tango is nominated for a best foreign language film Oscar.