Tango

Carlos Saura's 1998 film follows a director preparing a show about tango and his involvement with a young dancer who is the producer's girlfriend. But the story is a pretext; the film is essentially an essay on how dance and light can be carried onto film. Vittorio Storaro's photography is at its centre: coloured light, mirrors, backlit screens and the constant blurring of the border between a real place and a stage. The disappearances of the Argentine dictatorship are turned into a dance sequence, the film's most contested passage; powerful for some, aestheticising for others. The story is weak and the characters thin. Who it's for: viewers who like dance films and visual experiment. Who it's not for: anyone wanting a strong story, or troubled by political violence being aestheticised.