Naked Tango

In spite of a strong cast, including the very talented Fernando Rey, and sumptuous settings, this movie is simply a pretentious failure. The story revolves around the sado-masochistic relation between a hoodlum and a hapless woman, the latter abducted into forced prostitution in Argentina. There is surprisingly little eroticism in this movie, even with the presence of the ever lovely, and ever nude, Ms. May. The ill-fated couple tango their way to romance, but the utter lack of chemistry between D'Onofrio and May, compunded by a poorly scripted story line, strains the viewer's credulity. I admire Mr. Schraders' work in other films, but this one was definitely off-the-mark. The video is hard to find but it is most assuredly not a lost masterpiece.

Upon witnessing a suicide on board a trans-Atlantic vessel, a woman assumes the identity of the deceased to escape for a new life.

It turns out that the woman who's life she is replacing in a Polish mail order bride for a rich man in Argentina, who just so happens to run a brothel for the unequal male-female ratio population.

Ah-ha, not quite the lucky break she was hoping for then.

Two rival gangs operate in the city: the Argentines and Jews, and a powerful figure in the Jewish gangland is scheduled to be her first official customer.

I won't spoil it by telling what happens from here on out, but the woman's obsession with the tango-swirling hit-man of the Argentinian gang, Cholo, complicates things, as he battles with himself to keep his emotional distance from a woman he finds truly fascinating...

Superb acting, lavish sets, a simple yet powerful script and all that tango just makes this one quite unforgettable.

I'd strongly suggest anyone looking for something new to hunt down a copy and give this one a go.

To me, Naked Tango is the dance portrayed as a film. The intensity, brutality, cold and yet seductive passion between the `dancers' and the camera left me drawn to the pain and pleasure. I saw the blood as the rose, the actors as the dancers and the viewers as spectators (where we are part of the film). Defiantly a film that gets tattooed on the brain!

"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.

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.