Tangos: l'exil de Gardel

I saw a print of this film in a Latin American class a few years ago and was blown away." Who was the director?" was my question. It combined elements of Godard, Bertulucci, and the American musical. The images are as stunning as any by Vittorio Storraro and the story is ultimately uplifting and hopeful as it details the lives of Argentine exiles trying to survive and move on with their lives while in exile in Paris. Brilliant , but virtually unavailable in the states. This film needs to be discovered by film lovers and lovers of the tango.

Being a branch on the Spanish film-making tree, Argentines have no problem with the idea of blending a show within a movie, to the world of the movie itself, and then to the world outside the movie in which the viewer lives.

I call this folding.

I came to this because I knew it had this quality. And that it had something else that fascinates me: dance. Filmed dance is one of the most intriguing problems for a filmmaker and rewarding for a viewer. I love it when it works.

Also, I discovered on viewing that it plays with a related notion: that you cannot really see something that you are part of. You have to be in a fold, removed a bit. And it has yet another notion that compels. Sex as movement, as choreographed caress between two people who have poise that comes from wisdom through grace or pain, usually a mix. Its not a typical Hispanic idea, and is unique to Argentina, a philosophy of embodiment that corresponds in a way to fine acting. This alone, this one idea alone can melt the cauterized heart, and when experienced in life or remembered in art is transforming.

Yes, this film has all these ideas in it. Probably, the filmmaker is one of those wonderful people to know, full of ideas that spill out in ways that don't matter. Any intelligent, or fully felt conversation on any of these ideas will be more valuable than this movie. In fact, that is yet another idea here, that real touch has no substitute. None at all.

Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.

Solanas made a wonderful piece of art, not just a movie, but a theater play and a tango as well.

The anguish of exile, trying to show all the melancholy charged with irony and good humor. As a Discépolo's tango.

Marvelous, oneiric. A way to learn more about this kind of music that is famous around the world as "the dance of passion", but showed in its pure essence, with three of its' men, Gardel, Discépolo and Piazzolla.

Impossibly boring, self-indulgent, presumptuous Argentine film "a-la-francaise". The characters are poorly developed, the situations are artificially written, and the movie goes nowhere. Hard to believe anyone could care about this except the director. This is one to miss at all cost.

Already from the opening scene of tango dance on a Paris bridge one can understand that this is an outstanding film. Pain, sorrow, laugh, sex, solitude, nostalgia, music - all about the exiliados' life in Paris. And if you know a bit of Spanish the lyrics of the songs will stay long with you.