El Sur

Fernando E Solanas went into exile in Paris in 1976, and returned to Buenos Aires when democracy was restored in 1983. He wrote and directed two films, as far as I can find out, based in tango. Tangos: Exilio de Gardel (1985) has Piazolla's Tanguedia as a score, and the film is about an Argentine theatre and dance group in exile in Paris: it's serious and entertaining too. Piazolla provided incidental music for Sur (1988). Sur is a very dark film, quite literally. It takes place almost entirely at night, and out of doors. The streets are cold and windy: it's often raining. For most of the film we are denied the comfort of interiors. Everyone is bundled up in sweaters and coats. Darkness, shafts of light, mists, appearances, disappearances, occasionally a group of playful children in the darkness. The few scenes of daylight are overcast, muted. & it's a long film.

Floreal has been arrested and imprisoned. On his release after five years he goes to his apartment to be reunited with his wife and child, and raps on the shutters. It is night-time. She wakes up and knows immediately it is him, throws on a coat and rushes out into the street, calls out after him. But he has gone. Perhaps he knows it is possible she isn't alone (although she is), perhaps his return is too sudden. His night is a journey in the streets, reliving in flashback his past as a prisoner of the military, in the company of an old friend who we know is dead, casually shot by the military as they loot someone's apartment (not unusual apparently). Through his dead friend he learns what happened during his imprisonment. On the pavement outside the Cafe Sur (which is closed) and elsewhere, is a tango group, singer Roberto Goyaneche with Nestor Marconi on bandoneon. Out in the street, in the darkness, the wind and rain, they make music, and their songs structure the film. Finally it is dawn. Floreal makes his way home, ready to meet up with his wife, who awaits him.

Not tourist-board Buenos Aires or the city of nice tango tours and holidays, but I guess it's a distillation of the memories of anyone over 40 you meet there. Not a time anyone wants to recall, but Solanas made an extraordinarily imaginative epic out of it. His choices of story and setting must define an era, the cold, the night, the dislocations of people's lives. & of course the story is the archetypal journey through the underworld, of the hero who confronts demons to become whole again. Solanas creates Fellini-esque dream-like scenes, but avoids Fellini's sentimental humour. He's a committed political film-maker, but the film isn't a political tract: it's poetic from start to finish. Essentially it's a film about love: 'I return to the south/as one always returns to love/I return to you/with my longing, my anxiety' as the final song says (Vuelvo al Sur, lyrics by Solanas, music by Piazolla). & it is full of tango music (but no dance). Goyaneche's powerful, expressive voice and Marconi's bandoneon, the songs of Anibal Troilo. The music is amazing. Intense feelings pour out of it and saturate the film, the reassuring voice of tango in a very hard time.

It's astonishingly difficult to get hold of: my understanding of the film is very limited since I saw it dubbed into German, which was somewhat bizarre, on a friend's VHS cassette recorded from German TV. These two films of Solanas must be two of the great films of the 20th century, and yet are hardly available. There's a very expensive 2-DVD box set from a very small distributor, and Sur seems to have become available recently on file-sharing sites: I've no understanding of the legality of this (tho' I can guess), but I'm delighted if it makes a rare and great film more easily available. But we are lucky: the beginning and the end are on YouTube, with several songs from Goyaneche. Well worth watching and listening to.