Tango and Goosepimples

Tango: Baile Nuestro (Tango Our Dance if you are looking to buy it) is an Argentine film from 1988, an imaginative film, an ambitious film, a defective film, even irritating, but still fascinating. Defective in that, although people are imaginatively introduced at the beginning, as the film goes on new people appear, talk, perform, dance, without any introduction, so we don't know who they are. Irritating: any tango film with a section on a New Zealander from the Arthur Murray school of tango – standardised ballroom tango – teaching classes is irritating when there's so much more interesting material. On the other hand it's a general survey of tango in 1988, from Copes with his collection of Betamax cassettes of dancers, to the milongueros who work in cemeteries and scrap yards -- via the Arthur Murray dance schools.

The film hovers on the edge of 'the Milongueros' without ever really getting close to them, although we see brief episodes of wonderful tango at a milonga. Those people danced smooth! Then there's a lively scene when a visiting NBC crew films 'tango' – synchronised tango! In front of a 1920s car! All the while the film-maker talks to the audience. No, that's not the tango we dance and feel. It's cold, rehearsed, it's a laboratory product. It's not from the heart, not done with your feelings. Tango is sweetness. We think tango must be felt close to your heart: your ear, heart, and finally your feet speak. What we are seeing here is a fraud. It's not our tango, the one we feel when we dance... Sad that 'our tango' is shown only in glimpses, though I understand that if you know your milongueros there are many legends in those glimpses.

But it is of its era. 1988. Five years after the end of military rule. Over five years of massive success for Copes in Paris and on Broadway. Show tango of the highest order had made Argentina and tango famous: the film maker recognised the importance of the milongueros, but it might have been rash of him to spend time showing something his audience might not recognise. But there is a wonderful section with Portalea, at home and in the milonga: good to see him apparently in great health because in the BBC's Tango Salon, first shown in 2005, he is much older, and his dancing less intense. (He died last year.) & the film irritates again: at home he demonstrates with his wife how footwork has changed, allowing dancers to perform more figures. He's talking about his feet, and demonstrating with his feet, and the camera only shows head and shoulders!

& the goose-pimples? 'Tango has to give you goose-pimples, otherwise it's no good, brother.'