Let the Dance Begin

This is a great non-commercial Argentinian film; it's not a comedy but a drama in depth. To look at it as a comedy and wished to have some comic funny moments is a wrong wishful and shallow thinking. This bittersweet melancholy life stories from the three characters, two males and one female, disconnected for over thirty years, then was manipulated to be reconnected when all these three persons became senior citizens, all of them with some healthy even terminal illnesses. Under the subtly woven screenplay writer, who is also the director of it, we could easily see the feminine touch here there everywhere in this film. She was also assisted by a great cinematographer who used the camera showed us the beauty and erosion of the Argentinian countryside.

This film also showed us that life, sometimes, is a boomerang, no matter how far you throw it, it always returns to where it started. An inevitable and unavoidable doomed circle. Starting young and coming back old, so old that all the things you did along the route of the circling back are memories, some of them you can shrug off, but some of them are ironed so deep that you can never avoid that sooner or later, you still have to face and deal with it.

Under the bad influences of Hollywood and Disney, non-commercial film have become so rare. Their box office revenues are all not just meager but also pathetically laughable, but only from these films we could feel that we are still like real and normal humans.

Well, with all said, I have to say something about this film: It's a great film but, only for we senior citizens.

"Let The Dance Begin" ... hmmm .. a comedy film where they forgot to bring the funnies.

The director and the writers need to explain what they thought they were doing. They either don't know anything about comedy, or they had a brain spasm.

The expression on the face of the male lead in the poster, gives more giggles than his entire performance in the movie. In many scenes, he has many perfect opportunities to create explosive laughter, but the script or direction did not allow this.

And there are indeed many threads that could easily be woven into a really funny movie, a fake funeral, a jealous wife, a playboy husband, an old affair, (No spoilers as the trailer shows this) but there are many other situations where the audience could be rolling in the aisles with laughter ... but NOPE.

European films can be hilariously funny ... this ain't one of them.

A commenter wrote that this film embodied the spirit of Argentina - and being unfamiliar with both the country and tango, I'm surely missing something. What remains, however, is enough. Poignant story, bordering on the absurd but at the same time depicting reality, the ever-elusive present rooted in the past - I kept wondering whether rural Argentina is as frozen back in time. One is invited to stop and savour its tastes, while laughing at some of its once-glamorous buildings and inhabitants. There's charm in the grotesque and one cannot tell whether comedy overcomes the tragedy or vice versa. Most importantly, there are no regrets.

The music and the scenery in equal measure provide the background to this little gem, and the actors are delightful.