FILM REVIEW :: The Tango Lesson (1998, Sally Potter)

I saw this film several years ago, right when it came out on video. Of course at that time I was interested in it only because I was gobbling up every artsy, independent, or foreign film I could find at the Madison public library (I hit them all, I think)––but I hadn't ever danced a step of tango, nor could I have probably identified a tango song from a waltz or even a polka, for that matter.

Needless to say, watching it again for the second time this week, after a year of tango examination, it is an entirely different film alltogether. or maybe it's just me. Let's briefly recap for the sake of objective field note observation.

Sally Potter (the film's writer, director, and female lead) plays herself [or a character of herself?], a filmmaker living in London and travelling to France while working on her new film and script. While in Paris, she witnesses a live tango performance by the acclaimed Argentine dancer, Pablo Veron. He and his partner dance an onstage tango that leaves the audience, and Potter, breathless and misty-eyed. Potter approaches him, introduces herself, and Veron agrees to give a lesson. It goes moderately well (he tells her to "walk"). She goes home to London and continues on her film. Back home she attends a local tango event...a practica or informal milonga. It is uncomfortable. She is alone and seated in a child size chair. A man invites her to a dance that lasts all of 20 seconds. She nods and thanks him when it is over and sits back down in the small chair.

When her apartment is found in need of major repair, Sally seizes the 2 week opportunity to go to Buenos Aires. She meets 2 male tango teachers and learns at their side[---an alarming amount from the looks of things...way beyond any 2 week beginner, for sure. of course now i know that Sally Potter studied dance at a conservatory prior to her filmmaking career). When she is next reunited with Pablo Veron for her 2nd lesson in Paris, he is amazed at her progress, and they dance the night away, ultimately falling in some sort of love-like relationship. He asks her to perform with him in Paris, which she accepts. As she says, "I always wanted to be a dancer", to which Pablo replies, "I always wanted to be in films".

the point is clear...is he befriending and teaching Sally only in hopes of one day being made into a star in one of her movies? He is clearly an egotistical and vain creature, in love with attention and living in the limelight. But could we ask too, whether Sally would "love" Pablo as she says she does if he were not the tango dancer that he is? That is to say, does Sally love Pablo for tango the way he loves her for films? If so, is that wrong? or is it the most honest, most mutually beneficial form of love that could be?

Sally did this movie so well, i can hardly imagine anything to surpass it in its format. She covers it all---the emotions from first awareness, to early beginner, the challenges of plateau and partner communication, the pressures of professional dancing, fallout, shoe purchasing, practice, sore feet, obession, the music, the plebians who claim it, the love/hate, the give and take, the, as the taxi driver said, "to understand our tangos, you must have suffered greatly in life". to which Sally simply nods and smiles smugly. Finally a place where suffering and melancholy is a badge of honor.