When classical music Deutsche Grammophon allow their label on the front of
an album of film music it has to be something! It is!
Carlos Savra’s film is currently enjoying great success around the art
houses in the UK (the main distributors do not know what they have passed
up!) It is about a gifted film director abandoned by his wife. To forget
her, he throws himself into work on a film about tango and in doing so falls
in love and has a torrid affair with a beautiful dancer who is the mistress
of the film’s main financial backer. He is not oblivious to what
is going on and takes a contact out on the hapless film director. Images
of the director’s life and memories shown against an oppressive military
repression and the great wave of European immigrants at the turn of the century
all converge in the screenplay.
Argentinian composer, Lalo Schifrin, composer of such major scores as
Bullitt, Mission Impossible and Dirty Harry, was the
natural choice to score the film for he had been Astor Piazzolla’s pianist
in the world famous tango composer’s early years. Schifrin is remarkably
versatile, equally at home in jazz and classical music – and tango is
close to his heart. The tango has of course featured in many movies. It’s
appeal has remained undiminished since the beginning of the century from
brothels to sophisticated parties and ballrooms, and from Buenos Aires to
Hollywood via Paris (some of the numbers have that unmistakable Paris left-bank
jazz style).
A group of exceptional performers gathered for the recording session. One
of them was over 80 years old, and all were associated with the epoch of
the film. Some of the tangos are classics such as ‘La cumparsita’;
‘El choclo’ and ‘Caminito’ and there is Astor
Piazzolla’s ‘Calambre.’
The producers considered tangos, milongas and creole waltzes and chose what
they considered indispensable for the film. The score comprises tangos in
many moods: proud and haughty, sensual and voluptuous, strongly rhythmical
and energetic; jazz-inflected; quiet and sentimental, romantic, nostalgic,
and cheeky and humorous. In one memorable number ‘Corazón’,
that has some engagingly shifting rhythms, the tango invades the waltz. Schifrin
himself composed seven numbers to heighten the atmosphere and story line
of the film. His ‘Tango bárbaro’ is edgy, nervous and dangerous;
the shadows also trail his melodic and romantic ‘Tango del atardecer’
while ‘Tango lunaire’ recalls the 1920s in the manner of Kurt Weill.
One of the most impressive tracks is in marked contrast to all the rest.
‘La represión’ is a powerful orchestral composition played
here by the Buenos Aires Symphony. It speaks of merciless military might
with bass and snare drums crushing resistance. Women’s voices, in Greek
tragedy mode, bewail the chaos and brutality. A final solitary bell tolls
over the devastation.
If you have to choose between the plethora of tango releases pouring onto
the market at present, make it this one
Reviewer
Ian Lace
OST
