Passos de Paixão

First of all I have to say, that NAKED TANGO made me fall in love with tango 9 years ago...Now I've seen it once again, the 6th time! I must say that dance scenes are stunningly beautiful, enchanting!

I was complaining about too few good tango scenes, but I wasn't correct because in this movie there are plenty of them. However they are not seen clear, I mean, you can not see all body of the dancers in motion, to fix the steps. But it's not important now. Because I've understood why. Dancers are covered by twilight, shadow, by secret. The main thing there is the soul, not steps. It's the style of the movie.

The one thing I don't love, it's murdering and violence. Yes, I know, the world is cruel, the tango is cruel. It's true. But is it really the only end to finish our passionate creations, seekings, our love in the death?

Although I myself have been dancing Argentine tango just a year, but I found in this various emotions, such as tenderness, longing, grief, sadness, melancholy, even weakness.

In this movie there is one tango scene, at the end, there Cholo and Alba are dancing in her house. Slow, very slow and smooth, with music full of tenseness, presentation of disaster and tenderness at the same time. I love this.

"Naked Tango" makes for a fairly surreal experience. It has the exaggerated gestures and emotions of a silent film or grand opera. Despite gaps in logic you could perform a tango corrida through, the pace and energy of the film doesn't give you time to dwell on them.

On a ship heading to Argentina during the 1920's, Stephanie (Mathilda May), a woman bored by her marriage to the wealthy, much older Judge Torres (Fernando Ray), takes the identity of a young woman she sees jump overboard.

Stephanie more than spices up her life when as Alba, a young Jewish girl from Poland, she finds herself in an arranged marriage to Zico Borenstein (Esai Morales), a member of the Zvi Migdal. This is an organisation of pimps on the grand scale, which tricks women into prostitution. After attracting the attention of Choro, an Argentinean gangster played by Vincent D'Onofrio, events head off in unexpected directions, all swept along by the music and the mystique of the tango.

The stars make this film, and the stunning Mathilda May makes believable all the obsessive attention she receives from the males in the movie. I remember her spectacularly uninhibited performance in the otherwise forgettable "Lifeforce". Here she dances the tango of the film's title to the music of a blindfolded orchestra without any discernible loss of poise.

Vincent D'Onofrio gives an eye-popping performance, but it fits seamlessly with the theatricality of the whole thing. I wouldn't be the first person to notice his resemblance to Orson Welles (he's actually played him in a couple of movies) but here, half hidden in the shadows with the brim of his hat pulled down, he is uncannily like Harry Lime in "The Third Man".

Esai Morales and Fernando Ray wisely underplay, leaving the fireworks to May and D'Onofrio. Fernando Ray is perfect as Stephanie's real husband who realises too late that wealth, position and comfort are not enough to keep his beautiful wife away from the machismo of the dangerous Choro.

This is the second film I can recall that featured the Zvi Migdal. It was the driving force behind the plot of Jonathan Demme's underrated Hitchcock homage, "The Last Embrace", but in that film it is only alluded to, here it is front and centre.

"Naked Tango" has great locations, sumptuous sets, an arresting story, and a couple of stars that burn up the screen. When all is said and done, the title of the film is a good warning as to whether or not you are likely to enjoy this film - it's nothing less than an invitation to a dance on the wild side.

This movie does not have any special or original plot, acting is just average. There's some nice camera work and colored-lights usage, but that would be it. But the thing is, that this movie captures all that tango is. The movie is raw, erotic, sometimes vulgar. It is the only movie (as far as I've seen) that captures the essence of tango so very good. The knife fights are choreographed with tango steps, and are made sensual and erotic just as it is described in original tango songs. Cholo is a perfect compadrito, hoodlum from Buenos Aires, pimp, killer. Dance choreographies are nothing special, so if you're into that, I would rather recommend Saura's "Tango" or Potter's "Tango Lesson". But I would recommend this movie to fans of tango because it truly captures the atmosphere of Buenos Aires suburbia, how it was, when tango was danced by it's makers, whores and killers. I would give it 8/10 for atmosphere, but 5/10 for the rest. In the end, it's worth a look.

Cheers.

Vincent D'Onofrio is beyond gorgeous in this pretentious little ditty. It's a gorgeous film, very "foreign" and decadent and moody, but what of sense? It's silly - I get it, the tango is sensuous. Yeah, I got that. Wow, she's naked and he's cruel and hot. Wow, he's good in bed and it took a lot to get him to do it. He's not a whore, but she was forced to be! Tell me, isn't this film reminiscent of a "Kids in the Hall" episode with Francessca Foray (a Scott Thompson character, "International B - Movie Star") and everyone was speaking in movie metaphors? Yeah, it is. It's overwrought but I enjoyed this movie. Dumb yes, but it was fun and glorious to look at, from the bondage - bed scenes to Vincent all lean and dressed to the nines. Good Lord that man 's a typhoon of hottness (how's that phrase for you?)

I can see why many people dislike this film. Some of the scenes in it are more suggestions of reality than reality itself. I personally liked it. The settings were superb. The dancing wonderful. Cholo, melting the girl's heart just by fancy footwork is amazing.

Argentinian Tango musicians will tell you that they have witnessed many couples copulating while they dance the tango, hence the blindfolded trio makes this suggestion. (Since writing that I have been informed that tango musicians WERE sometimes blindfolded in real life.)

The costumes and especially the lighting are terrific.

The relationship between the two central characters is complex: less talk more S & M.