THE TANGO LESSON (Sony Pictures Classics) Starring: Sally Potter, Pablo Veron. Screenplay: Sally Potter. Producer: Christopher Sheppard. Director: Sally Potter. MPAA Rating: PG (adult themes, mild violence) Running Time: 105 minutes. Reviewed by Scott Renshaw.
"I've always wanted to be in films," says dancer/choreographer Pablo Veron at one point in THE TANGO LESSON, to which writer/director Sally Potter replies "I've always wanted to be a dancer." Well, both get their chance in a grating feature-length self-indulgence disguised as a fanciful romance. Potter plays a film-maker named Sally, visiting Paris after difficulties getting financing for her latest project (which is thoroughly unbelievable, since the project in question involves the pure box office gold of models dressed in primary colors pursued by a legless fashion designer). There she meets Veron, and convinces the dancer to teach her the tango. Along the way they sort of fall in love, dance, sort of break up, dance some more, sort of get back together again, and dance a whole lot more.
Somewhere buried in this collection of dance sequences are a few meditations on one's calling in life, the need to surrender control and the connections between various art forms. More power to you if you manage to exhume them. THE TANGO LESSON carries no emotional pull, since both lead performers have the seasoned acting chops of...well, a director and a dancer. Some of the dance sequences are impressive, particularly Veron's solo tap number in a kitchen, but the portentous and pretentious flow of the narrative robs them of all joy -- imagine Gene Kelly directed by Fellini, and you'll understand why THE TANGO LESSON is such a bizarre experience. Robby Muller's typically impressive black-and-white cinematography only emphasizes that the film is an empty visual exercise, a project so personal it can only leave the audience wondering why in the world it should care. Potter's spin on Fellini's 8-1/2 is merely a moderately depressing record of the film-maker's mid-life crisis, in which she attempts to assure the world that she could too be a ballerina if she really wanted to.
On the Renshaw scale of 0 to 10 tangos up in blue: 4.
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