Mango Tango

I am very impressed with this 1st effort by this extremely talented and stunningly beautiful director-writer-actress-dancer-singer-pianist !! I was blown away by the originality of the writing, the quirckiness of the humor and the character development, the bravery of the actors, the quality and integration of the music, the authentic and honest choreography, and the cleanliness and simplicity of the cinematography. I laughed , and sighed, and felt my heart open to the sadness and frustration and joy and exhiliration of this woman's life situation around men. And her efforts to process and grow through these experiences was a pleasure and honor to watch. The willingness of this lead actress to "expose" all parts of herself to us all is commendable.! The integration of fantasy and reality , I believe , served us as an audience, in keeping us involved in the lead character's inner thoughts and some of her logic for the choices she made . I look forward to seeing the sophomore project by this director..

When the forerunner to the Queens World Film Festival asked me to introduce the feature Mango Tango I jumped on it. I knew very little about this new filmmaker who had such a vast experience as an actress and dancer on both sides of the Atlantic.

The film starts out in a linear fashion and before you know it an array of curve balls plays on our senses. And sensibilities. There is a scene in which our protagonist hesitates about making love as it is the 'wrong' time of the month. Well, it becomes a glorious tribute to the body, both male and female. To some this may be startling but I found it refreshing. And the humor!

All along, as this movie becomes less linear and more and more quirky, we find ourselves not certain about what is real and what is not. Until all the pieces of wild imagination become an overwhelming mass of other people's opinions on our heroine.

Are there some frames and lines that could be edited? Yes, but that doesn't take away from the entirety of this mosaic.

After the screening I had the pleasure of 'interviewing' several audience members who were extremely inspired. To many women, and also men, it was an inspiration that someone of Marianne Hettinger's beauty, would tell this kind of story as she is a long limbed European blonde with an exquisite silhouette and heck of a talent for dancing! It is assumed that she has the world by its balls. But no. Not until the end when she is free and so frees us.

I can't wait to see what this artist is cooking up next!

The film starts out being quite funny and quirky with a European feel to it. Wonderful talent here, in terms of acting- including a cameo by AMC's Emmy award winning actor Michael E. Knight as a pretend Shaman and music by Latin Grammy award winner Pablo Ziegler. 3/4 in the film could have used some editing. Otherwise a fun experience.

This film is the opposite of mainstream cinema. Unique and creative, powerful imagery and a heroine whose search efforts for her ideal mate go disturbingly wrong in a sometimes humorous and disturbing way. The filmmaker has a unique vision and voice- The film is very ambitious and sometimes seems more a series of vignettes rather than one plot, but the power of the images and beautifully crafted soundtrack, acting and dialogue and of course dance scenes, that are like a dance relief sequence, all work beautifully. The contrast of the scenes in New York and the German Alps are a wonderful juxta -position- I was rooting for the heroine to find her man, but she found something more important, herself.

What I found interesting about this film is that the lead character, a New York City dance teacher, has an easy time dancing with men in harmony but in her private life it's a whole other story. She meets heart break after heart break. Somehow she manages to keep up her positive spirit though even though her life is in danger at one point. The filmmaker, Marianne Hettinger, takes risks to show her heroine's story: a love scene that goes quite far without showing too much, a straight man who channels a gay guy from Chelsea named Brian and a storyline that moves from New York to Germany. The look of the film is great for what must have been a small budget. I enjoyed watching a scene with the legendary dancer/choreographer David Parsons as well as Nicolas Kosovich, a Dancing With The Stars alumni.