I loved this movie for its luminous black and white portraiture of Tango, Buenos Aires and Paris. There's been a few negative comments about Sally's insistence on casting herself in the lead role. A reviewer said that she looked tired; the result of multi-tasking her role as lead and director. I say she has a face that is somewhat care-worn from living a life well which is full of emotional content. It is important to juxtapose the angelic face of Pablo Veron against her much more sage face. A younger more beautiful type would not have worked. She was so smart to think of that; or perhaps it was the fortunate result of looking at the rushes that it came to her. As an art house film it works; the locations are interesting; fragments of spaces and shapes and textures with beautiful lighting. As a study of human relationships it was so painful to watch. I so related to her reluctance to interfere with yet desire to connect with Pablo. Honestly painful. There are also the familiar cast of characters that appear in Sally's other films: Heathcote Williams and Peter Eyre to name 2 that I recognized. I loved Eyre's interaction with Sally; he watched her sadly as she watched Pablo knowing exactly what was going on in her mind. Such an interesting actor with less than 5 minutes on screen time. It is interesting that Maria (one of the Hollywood execs) is an Argentinian born actress pulling off a very good interpretation of an LA beautiful person. Comfortable like a great pair of well worn dance shoes with a patina that just gets better with time. There was just enough there to whet the appetite but like good dancers; they held enough back making you beg for more.
Review of The Tango Lesson
