Tango (1998 film)

Tango
Tango
	Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Carlos Saura
Screenplay by	Carlos Saura
Produced by	Carlos Mentasti; Luis A. Scalella
Starring	Miguel Ángel Solá; Mía Maestro; Juan Luis Galiardo
Cinematography	Vittorio Storaro
Edited by	Julia Juaniz
Music by	Lalo Schifrin
Production; companies	Adela Pictures; Alma Ata International Pictures; Argentina Sono Film; Astrolabio Producciones
Distributed by	Líder Films (Argentina); Warner Bros. (Spain)
Release dates	6 August 1998 (Argentina); 25 September 1998 (Spain);
Running time	115 minutes
Countries	Argentina; Spain
Language	Spanish
Budget	US$4.6 million
Box office	US$1.6 million (US)

Tango (Spanish: Tango, no me dejes nunca, translation: Tango, never leave me) is a 1998 Argentine-Spanish musical drama film written and directed by Carlos Saura and starring Miguel Ángel Solá and Mía Maestro. It was photographed by cinematographer Vittorio Storaro.

Plot

In Buenos Aires, Mario Suárez, a middle-aged theatre director, finds himself holed up in his apartment, licking his wounds when his girlfriend (and principal dancer) Laura leaves him. Seeking distraction, he throws himself into his next project, a musical about the tango. One evening, while meeting with his backers, he is introduced to a beautiful young woman, Elena, who is the girlfriend of his chief investor Angelo, a shady businessman with underworld connections.

Angelo asks Mario to audition Elena. He does so and is immediately captivated by her. Eventually, he takes her out of the chorus and gives her a leading role. An affair develops between them, but the possessive Angelo has her followed and threatens her with dire consequences if she leaves him, mirroring Mario's own feelings and actions towards Laura before Elena entered his life.

The investors are unhappy with some of Mario's dance sequences. They don't like a routine that criticizes the violent military repression and torture of the past. Angelo has been given a small part, which he takes very seriously. The lines between fact and fiction begin to blur: during a scene in the musical showing immigrants newly arrived in Argentina, two men fight over the character played by Elena. She is stabbed. Only slowly do we realize that her death is not real.

Cast

Miguel Ángel Solá as Mario Suárez
Mía Maestro as Elena Flores
Cecilia Narova as Laura Fuentes
Juan Luis Galiardo as Angelo Larroca
Juan Carlos Copes as Carlos Nebbia
Carlos Rivarola as Ernesto Landi
Sandra Ballesteros as María Elman
Óscar Cardozo Ocampo as Daniel Stein
Enrique Pinti as Sergio Lieman
Julio Bocca as Julio Bocca
Martín Seefeld as Andrés Castro

Production

Tango was shown out of competition at the 1998 Cannes Film Festival.^[2]

Accolades

Wins

1998 - Goya Award for Best Sound.
1998 - Grand Prix Technique de la CST (Vittorio Storaro) at the 1998 Cannes Film Festival.^[2]
1998 - San Diego Film Critics Society Awards for Best Foreign Language Film

Nominations

1998 - Academy Award Best Foreign Language Film by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.^[3]
1998 - Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film.

Home media

Tango was issued on DVD by Sony Pictures in August 1999, in Spanish with English subtitles.

References

^ Tango at Box Office Mojo
^ ^a ^b "Festival de Cannes: Tango". festival-cannes.com. Retrieved 11 August 2013.
^ "The 71st Academy Awards (1999) Nominees and Winners". oscars.org. Retrieved 20 October 2015.

External links

Tango - Carlos Saura - 1998 on YouTube. Video duration 1h 55m 00s. Uploader Escuela De Tango De Monterrey, 2021. Complete Spanish spoken film, with English subtitles.
Tango at IMDb
Tango at Rotten Tomatoes
‹The template AllMovie title is being considered for deletion.› Tango at AllMovie
Tango at the cinenacional.com (in Spanish)

[1] Tango at Box Office Mojo

[festival-cannes.com-2] "Festival de Cannes: Tango". festival-cannes.com. Retrieved 11 August 2013.

[Oscars1999-3] "The 71st Academy Awards (1999) Nominees and Winners". oscars.org. Retrieved 20 October 2015.

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