The Tango Lesson (1997)

directed by Sally Potter

Julia Sirmons

The scene—an improvised dance number—entranced me. It had that kind of movie magic where the impossible seems to happen in bold strokes. Time seems elastic, bodies move with astonishing grace, and romance soars to sweeping heights.

This was the first bit that my teenaged, channel-surfing self saw of Sally Potter’s The Tango Lesson. It’s a rich, richly layered film about the tangled bonds between art, life, and love. This dance number distills the movie’s themes into enchanting images that sweep you up with its exuberance. It is a goodbye scene. Director Sally (played by Potter herself) is flying to meet with her producers; her dance teacher Pablo (Pablo Veron) has brought her to the airport. They are lovers, or about to be. They begin strolling on parallel moving walkways. He steps forward, she goes backwards: they keep drawing closer and drifting away from each other. Pablo (with his dark angelic curls and deep, impossibly wet eyes) shows off for Sally; he jumps and twirls before hopping over the rails, and lands next to her on the walkway. He drapes his body over the railings. The pose is both humble and grandiose: he offers his body to her while asking for adulation for his performance. Sally leans over and kisses him, gently but firmly. They pull apart again, blowing kisses and holding their arms wide open as they finally say goodbye. It’s an exaggerated scene, but it encapsulates the giddiness of new love, and the joy of two artists being perfectly in sync.

When I happened upon this scene as a girl, it offered a potent fantasy of adult life. It promised romance and adventure. I wanted to be like Sally—daring, self-assured in her work and her desires. I traveled and looked for inspiration, naively seeking a head of curls. But back then I could only sense faint contours of the film’s ranging topography. The Tango Lesson covers richer terrain, and offers deeper treasures. It deftly weaves together questions of creativity and inspiration, and how love feeds or impedes them.

The Tango Lesson begins in a state of creative frustration: Sally is struggling to finish the screenplay for her next film. It’s about a murderer who’s targeting fashion models. (This is semi-autobiographical writer’s block; Potter would revisit this material in her 2009 film Rage.) In her mind, the story surfaces in vivid flashes: beautiful women zipped into ribbons of sapphire and scarlet satin tremble and fall dramatically to their deaths. But in the monochrome world of reality (most of the film is in black and white), Sally struggles against a blank white page.

As is so often the case, inspiration comes unbidden, and by a winding road. Sally wanders into a tango performance where Pablo is dancing. She is seduced and spellbound, her luminous face beaming like a child on Christmas day. She approaches him, not hesitating in her pursuit. She tells him he has the “grace of an angel.” An angel, but, even more than that, a movie star: “You give, but not too much.” (This is the skill that all great film actors must master.) A few sparks start flying. Potter’s decision to portray her interest in Pablo as both professional and personal is something of a risk. While male artists are almost expected to sleep with their muses; women artists who do the same are often taken less seriously because of it.

At first, Sally and Pablo circle around each other. Like many a muse, he’s diffident and noncommittal; he forgets their scheduled lesson, then he dismisses her as a novice. Sally goes to Argentina, and continues her studies with two other dancers. Where Pablo is teasingly aloof, these men are warm, effusive—they’re big, jolly gesticulators. They clearly take pleasure in teaching, and in Sally’s company. Amidst joy and laughter, they easily correct her posture and guide her feet. Sally quickly picks up all the basic steps of the dance, then she figures out how to do the leaning and lifts that make the tango so artistically expressive. It’s a joyful, giddy interlude, a beautiful training montage where a creative person learns new skills. Eventually, her pleasure in the tango becomes our pleasure as well. We are spellbound by swivels and pivots and lifts of the dance because of how joyfully she films it, and how beautifully she dances herself.

Once Sally is ready, Potter follows up with a dazzling sequence of Sally dancing at a tango club. The way it is shot is giddy and intoxicating. Vivid close-ups of feet circling and twisting between each other, magically avoiding any tripping. But the real source of delight is Potter’s wildly moving camera, so the audience can appreciate the spell of the tango’s movement, and follow its dynamic twirlings.

As the camera circles around, Sally’s always there, finding herself in the center of the frame. In the light, she beams, but keeps an inscrutable smile on her face. Quietly confident and beautiful, she’s totally at ease when her male partners place their cheeks right next to her. As a middle-aged woman who embraces the scrutiny of these close-ups, Potter asserts her point of view both before and behind the camera. She is completely confident that she can be not only a director, but also a performer, and an object of desire. Here, again, she takes a great risk, making herself and her story the focus on the film. Not everyone could accept this: one reviewer suggested that Potter looked “worn out” and should have hired an actress to play herself. There is a kind of rebellion, then, merely in reveling in her own body on the screen.

Potter’s interest in the tango is artistic, but passion always lives beneath this technical level. It is self-evidently sexy, because of the thrilling relationship it creates between the dancers and their bodies. It’s a dance of leaning, swirling, entwining. There are thrilling “almosts” and “just-barelys” and insinuations and suggestions, the complex twisting steps and its dramatic poses: holds and lifts are show-off-y and bold. Its seduction lies in insinuations of sex and passion and broken hearts.

Passion for the tango brings Sally and Pablo together again. The twists and turns of their bodies test their emotional chemistry. As they learn to go back and forth, they master patterns of push and pull that suit their particular situation. Sally (the student) wants to get into the dance for a new film; Pablo (the teacher) wants to have Sally use more complicated choreography. The tango’s dynamics of push and pull dramatize the relationship between Sally and Pablo, each of whom has to be in charge in their own arena. Sally (reluctantly) must follow Pablo’s lead when they are dancing. Pablo must wait as Sally takes time to develop a role for him in her film.

The Tango Lesson is so sexy and compelling because the fizzy fantasies of Pablo and Sally’s dances alternate with serious, thorny conversations about work, love and philosophy. The Tango Lesson contains some of the most beautiful images I’ve ever seen on screen: Sally and Pablo are perfectly in sync as they dance in the snow on the banks of the Seine, or fast and daring as they dance on the street in Argentina, in the pouring rain. As a teenager, the beauty and the ardor of these scenes swept me away. Now I appreciate them even more because of the grounded, adult conversations that occur in between these moments of artistic passion and collaboration.

The romance that develops between Sally and Pablo is thorny and complex: each have artistic and emotional needs to be fulfilled. When Pablo tap dances on top of Sally’s mantelpiece, he’s showing off to impress his lover, but this is also an audition for Sally’s new film. When Sally dances with Pablo at an exhibition, she disappoints her by not following his lead. Pushing and pulling, leading and following: these are the profound dynamics that shape Sally and Pablo’s relationship. The Tango Lesson lets the passions and conflicts between the play out deftly and gently. Conversations between Sally and Pablo are sometimes teary, sometimes heated, but they remain surprisingly adult. There are undercurrents and recognition that they are able to tap into and understand the other’s needs and desires on a more profound level. These smaller scenes now strike me as deeply true and truly beautiful—miniature portraits of how to understand, to see anew, and to forgive.

Despite these tensions between art and life and love, The Tango Lesson is more optimistic about the ability to combine art and love. During a rehearsal, Pablo practices a dance number Sally wants for the film. He sits before a mirror, and Sally stands beside him. He asks her what she sees when she looks at him. “I see you on the screen.” “You are not here with me,” he says. “You have become a camera.” “But that’s how I love you, Pablo,” she says, gently taking his arm. Art is not detached from life, it is a form of love. This—The Tango Lesson’s ultimate belief that artistic collaboration is intricately bound to romantic relationships—makes it less a teenaged fantasy and more a sophisticated (but forgiving and lighthearted) perspective on grown-up life and love.

Julia Sirmons writes about sex, crime, and musicals in culture. You can find her writing at Slate, Bright Wall/Dark Room, CrimeReads, and other places. You can find her work at juliasirmons.com.