1191  Duvall is a good ambassador of tango

Date: Tue, 22 Apr 2003 19:43:23 -0400
From: Daniel Saindon <gardien@TANGO.MONTREAL.QC.CA>
Subject: Duvall is a good ambassador of tango

Good evening

Mr. Cstilllo talks like someone
on his P.M.S.

I rather liked the movie very much.

Certainly, there is not a lot of tango
dancing a lot less than TANGO LESSON.

The storyline is not like an Holliwood movie
gong with a Bang for your Buck and a
Bust for your But; The storyline is subdued
like a European movie; the soundtrack does not
give you the feeling you need to get from a scene,
it allows your person to make sense of the environment
by putting the pieces together in your brain.

It is not about tango dancing; it is about
a little bit of tango culture through the
eyes of people who know what it is about,
Maria Nieves and others.

The big surprise is the city of Bs As and
its people; Robert Duvall is a master at
making non-professionnal actor look natural
and portraying the state of mind of the people
in Argentina showing us for example how old
people live together with younger generations
unlike the class distinction we have here
in North America for Seniors.

Again, there is a lot of small treasures in this
movie, one beingthe dialogue between Duvall and
his young companion at the restaurant. Many
complained about the lack of subtlety of:
"you have your chance right now, this is Bs As",
I would rather focus on the maturity of the exchange
and the values of this young lady, not exactly
the picture of your average young-fearless-rockNroll
pretty faced woman of 30.

Best is the portrait it provides of Bs As behind
the recent political and sociological history.

Duvall is a good ambassador of tango.

Daniel Saindon
gardien@tango.montreal.qc.ca





At 19:42 2003-04-22 -0300, you wrote:

> Assassination Tango :Can we call a spade a spade?
>
> The film Assassination Tango is an embarrassing disappointment, not
>only to the Tango community, but to the film-going public. The scenario is
>incoherent, the dialogue lacks polish and the words are mumbled. Duvall is
>constantly trying to prove he can still sow his oats: whether he's kicking a
>telephone booth to death, playing tough guy around boxers, or a
>particularly pathetic scene is with a prostitute, where we hear the
>call-girl scream :"incredible!". Rare to find a film nowadays where the
>main character has to talk to himself so that the spectators can figure out
>what's going on. His squeeze Luciana Pedraza can neither act nor dance.
>The Argentine actors are credible, but their dialogue and gestures are
>simply "boludo"! As for bringing tango dance into the heartland of North
>America and Europe, forget it. We do get a glimpse of Jorge Dispari
>teaching Duvall's girlfriend the basic step for twenty
>seconds, and another teacher (whom I don't recognize) having her do doing
>ridiculous flicks with her admittably long legs. If you're savy you can pick
>out some of Buneos Aires' finest dancers, but they
>don't dance in the film. Duvall's finale with Pedraza is a testatment to
>HIS stamina and HIS love of the dance, but nothing to write home about. The
>only valid, and in my opinion, best scene of the whole movie is literally
>at the end of the film, when the credits run. There we Pablo Veron and
>Geraldine Dispari dancing Tanturi Campos's Emotion. A wonderful, energetic
>swatch of beauty. If only Duvall had put
>more of Argentina's finest on screen. Old Tangeros often warn against
>teaching one's lover to dance. It seems it even more perilous to teach one's
>lover to act. The film may be a personal gift to his life-partner, but it is
> a boring disservice to the tango community and a sad conclusion to
>Robert Duvall's extraordinary film career.
>
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>