Tango (1998 film)

1998 film by Carlos Saura

Tango (lang es, 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.

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.

Tango was shown out of competition at the 1998 Cannes Film Festival.

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