And so it ends; or begins…
“Milongueros” might have been a feature film – and as it opened, panning the dreary dusk hanging over a bleak Buenos Aires waterfront, Manny Face thought he was in for a niche art drama – provisionally centered around aging men and their lifelong passion for tango, with the action in the Argentine capital, with a plot that probably would have had them talking like actors in a movie and going through some crisis until the big moment toward the end, with the tango by now forgotten and pushed out of the frame.
But in “Milongueros,” we are introduced very simply and directly to several older men as they each wash, shave, and dress for a night out at Buenos Aires clubs and dancehalls, where they are lifelong habitués. They are silently concentrated on their preparations, gathering their thoughts, thinking into the night, somewhat like boxers, perhaps, before a fight.
You begin to get the sense that you are not watching a regular movie, but a film about a particular type of people, or personage, with a specific passion, centered on and around the tango, once we have passed with them into the clubs. There, the camera, instead of giving us their feet, where we assume the dancing takes place, we get close-ups of their upper bodies, the milongueros embracing their women in dance, we see the closed eyes of the ladies, their serene, delighted expressions – it’s all so simple, unspeakably passionate, and beautiful – and indeed, the tango does not start with the feet, but ends there. For the tango, an escalating interpretation and pouring out of emotion, starts with the heart.
This is better than anything that can be imagined; and something like this can’t be imagined – it must be lived. A milonguero is not just who you are; it is a way of life. And for it to be known to anyone of us, who has not lived this life, it must be shown the way it’s lived, if we are to have any idea at all, and in that respect, this sympathetic, quiet, unpretentious documentary succeeds.
Dipping into Wikipedia, together with Manny Face’s own knowledge, a milonguero is a person who spends time dancing social tango – a close-embrace style of dance. The word ‘milonguero’ comes from milonga, an Argentine word that means tango dancehall or event. A milonga is also a type of fast-paced dance related to the tango, which is also danced at milongas, along with the tango and the tango-waltz.
“Though there are many individual differences between men,” Wikipedia writes, “milongueros generally dress conservatively, wearing a sport coat or suit, dress shirt and often a tie. They do not attempt to converse with their partner during a song. They are keenly aware of others on the dance floor and they maintain the line of dance, a stately progression of all the couples moving counterclockwise around the dance floor. The milonguero does not bump into or kick other dancers; he employs mostly circular movements to keep an inward focus for himself and his partner, and to allow for small adornments made with the foot. Above all, he interprets the mood of the music with his dancing. He cherishes each musical pause as it comes, and he executes movements that coincide with musical phrases.”
“Since the early 20th century,” and particularly with respect to tango’s Golden Age of the 1930s and ‘40s, “the term referred to a man immersed in the tango culture specific to Buenos Aires … Such a man was ‘raised and groomed on tango’ and his ‘reverence for the dance and its traditions’ strongly influenced the way he danced.”
This describes the subjects of “Milongueros.”
The interviews these men give in the film are possibly the simplest that have ever been recorded.
They say:
“I’m convinced the tango starts from emotions and feelings. You have to love it very much. It has to be your everything. I’ve lived my life for it. I’ve lived to dance. I’ve lived for my friends. I’ve spent my time well. It’s a style of life and I chose that life myself. I chose the night. There is nothing more beautiful than tango. Through the ears it falls right into your heart. And the feet begin to dance by themselves. They can no longer stand in place.”
“Fault me with being too categorical, but thanks to milongueros, I’ve understood that there are only two incontrovertible truths in tango: the embrace, and the music.”
One of them said, you can’t die when you’re dancing tango, because Death avoids you – out of a sort of respect, as Manny Face understood it, or because what you are doing completely confounds him.
But as it can’t be avoided, a milenguero would like no end better than to die in the arms of a woman, dancing.
Manny Face has a passion for the Argentine Tango.
Know what I mean?
Manny Face, May 30, 2013