I like Argentinian films. Particularly the landscape, which is strangely familiar somehow, once you get outside big cities like Buenos Aires.
All that blue sky, those hills and bush – it looks like Central Otago. No wonder they’re so keen on rugby.
But the people are still Latin American – and the sound of Argentina is the tango, played on a jazzed-up accordion, the famous “bandoneon”.
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The tango conquered the world in the 1930s and 40s, and thereby hangs the tale of Argentinian romantic drama Let the Dance Begin.
It’s the story of long-retired tango dancers, Carlos and Marga. Once they played to crowned heads and political leaders.
Since they split up, Carlos got married and moved to Spain, where he’s now a successful TV soap star. As for Marga, she effectively disappeared.
Then one day Carlos gets a phone call.
It’s his old bandoneon-player Pichu, with bad news. Marga has been found dead in her rundown Buenos Aires flat.
Carlos is horrified. How has it come to this? He drops everything and rushes to Marga’s funeral, where he gets a surprise.
The first of many surprises, in fact. Marga’s not dead. She and Pichu just faked it for her own purposes.
And she has news for the stunned Carlos. It seems they have a son he had no idea about. A son who lives a two-day drive away.
Carlos is skeptical. And he’s got no intention of getting into Pichu’s rundown old van on some wild goose chase.
But Marga and Pichu apply the guilt and invoke the old days... And anyway, if he didn’t weaken there’d be no movie.
Let the dance begin, in other words - three old friends – in the case of Carlos and Marga, two old lovers – in a van. In Argentina, the appeal was seeing three popular stars at work.
Standout is Dario Grandinetti as the pompous Carlos, the would-be European sophisticate with his perfect English pronunciation. The more earthy Marga thinks it’s hilarious.
There are lies and secrets behind the lies. Even Pichu, the rough-diamond musician has his fair share of surprises up his sleeve too.
He and Marga are each keeping things from Carlos, but they’re obviously waiting till they think he’s earned their confidences.
A running gag is Marga and Carlos’s constant fear of being recognised.
Marga, after all, has just pulled off a completely fraudulent funeral, while Carlos is worried the tabloids will reveal his scandalous love-child.
But you suspect they’re more concerned that the one-time Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers of Tango may have been totally forgotten all these years later.
Let the Dance Begin is clearly a love letter from writer-director Marina Sereseski to tango, to old stars and, in a way, to Argentina.
It’s a delightful film, if you’re not expecting too many surprises. Apart from one. This is the first Argentinian film I’ve seen for years that didn’t star Ricardo Darín. I like Ricardo, but it’s nice he passed the ball to someone else this time.