Quite the number

>> Tango manages a perfect pitch

by MATTHEW HAYS

Creating a balance between the dramatic scenario and musical numbers in a film is one of the most difficult acts imaginable. Bob Fosse did it, almost seamlessly, in Cabaret. Spanish filmmaker Carlos Saura has done it again with Tango, a film about an artist (Miguel Àngel Solà) struggling to make a film about the tango.

As Solà searches for talent for the film, the ruins of his personal life are laid bare. He attempts to reconcile with his estranged wife by forcing himself upon her. In the throes of a mid-life crisis, Solà falls for a young dancer he casts in the film. To make things thoroughly complicated, she's also the mistress of a mobster who's bankrolling a sizable chunk of Solà's movie.

Interspersed with these dramatic developments are the dance numbers of the cast of the film-within-the-film. The sexually charged tango, for which Saura attests to having a passion since childhood, is captured brilliantly by veteran cinematographer Vittorio Storaro. The filmmakers have made some thrilling choices here: unlike so many contemporarily shot dance numbers, the moves are captured in the longest takes possible (not unlike old Astaire and Rogers movies), highlighting the full extent of the dancers' achievements.

As Tango proceeds, so does Solà's achievement--a magnificent dance to be captured on film. The form that is the film's namesake is dropped, and here the choreography takes on a modern form. The sequence that follows is sheer brilliance. It is as though all of Solà's life is flashing before his eyes: the disappearances of friends who were too political in the eyes of government officials; the mass murders of dissenters; the murder of a woman in peril.

Masterfully shot, this 10 minutes is pure Saura: lyrical, intelligent, poetic and staunchly political without being didactic. When the dance is done, Solà's investors express their disdain at having such a nasty political history unearthed for the sake of a dance. Stick to the lighter stuff, they tell the director. Why dredge up such nasty memories? We were having fun, they tell him, but now they simply feel anxious.

The onscreen Solà--and the offscreen Saura--have done their respective jobs admirably. Tango captures the sensualism of dance, all the while evoking the bittersweet tribulations of an artist tumbling over middle age.

Tango opens Friday, March 5