Tango

In this masterpiece of timing and cinematic movement kept me enthralled for the full period. One begins to focus on a single entity and soon another moves into the room. There is true choreography everywhere. The movements of the characters never clash, they move seamlessly, doing the same repetitive dance. It's impossible for a brief review to do this justice. I would urge everyone to see this at some point.

The year 1982 saw three shorts nominated for the Academy Award for Animated Short. All were excellent and could easily have won. It was the misfortune of The Great Cognito and The Snowman that they were in direct competition with this short. This is so intricately done and so fascinating in its conception and execution, that words fail me. It reminds me of the feeling I get when I look at the works of M.C. Escher. This must be watched (more than once) to be fully grasped. One warning is necessary: this is not for children. A portion or two of this is most decidedly adult in nature. Most decidedly and solidly recommended!

There are few short films as quietly audacious as Zbigniew Rybczynski's Tango (1981). At first glance, it's just a room. A dozen or so characters. And a bunch of doors. But give it a moment, and you realize you're witnessing something that's less film and more a perfectly choreographed dance of chaos and control-shot, layered, and edited long before "digital" was a household word.

Rybczynski didn't just shoot a film; he invented a new way to bend time and space. Imagine dozens of characters performing their loops-slamming doors, reading newspapers, chasing a cat-all on the same stage, but none ever bumping into one another. The trick? Multiple exposures painstakingly composited together, frame by frame, before computers made such feats routine. It's a technical marvel that feels like watching a Swiss watch in motion: every cog clicking perfectly in time.

But Tango isn't just a showcase for wizardry. Beneath its mechanical beauty lies a sly commentary on the claustrophobia of everyday life-especially in Cold War Poland, where conformity was both demanded and defied. These repeated actions, these overlapping routines, capture the strange tension of living inside a system that prizes order but can't quite suppress human unpredictability.

And it's funny, too-in a deadpan, almost absurdist way. The film's title could easily be mistaken for a romantic dance, but this Tango is more about the push and pull of routine and rebellion, of isolation in a crowded room. The black-and-white visuals, coupled with a hypnotic score, make the whole thing feel like a fever dream of daily life seen under a microscope.

Watching Tango now, in an age where visual effects can create entire universes with a click, you appreciate just how ahead of its time it was. It's a film that demands patience, precision, and a willingness to be swept up in its looping world-a world that is as mesmerizing as it is oddly relatable.

In short: Tango isn't just a film. It's a reminder that even in the most regimented spaces, life finds a way to dance.

Zbigniew Rybczynski won an Oscar for this piece of art, and maybe it inspired Christopher Nolan and the creator of Bluey (the episode Hand Stand). I'd love to see the behind-the-scenes of Tango because how was it filmed and maintain patience at the same time?

Quite simply mesmerising. I saw this in the modern art museum in Warsaw and saw it 3 times before I left the room. I think I'll probably watch it another 10 times on YouTube before I even come close to appreciating how intricate and clever it is (THIS is what marks it apart from the soppy The Snowman that some seem to think deserved the Oscar). The interaction (without actual interaction) between the multitude of characters is fascinating to behold. As my partner put it, "I'm freaking out!"