Danzon

DANZON
DIRECTOR:                     MARIA NOVARO
COUNTRY:                     MEXICO 1991
CINEMATOGRAPHY:    RODRIGO GARCIA
CAST:                              Maria Rojo, Carmen Salinas, Tito Vasconcellos, Victor Carpinteiro,
SUPER FEATURES:        Is the film about perfection in dance, or love...?

DANZON is one of those films that is actually pretty nice, although you wonder what it is getting at. It dedicates much time and attention to the little things that make a good dance, or dancers, and to the sensuality necessary to make it work between two partners. But Julia, has not only lost that partner, she has also lost what could be her one and only special love, although it isn't clear that the lost partner is her lover at all, although she would wish him to be.

After winning many dance contests with this man, she is now troubled because he has disappeared. And she starts looking for him. And gets teased miserably by her friends in the process. Her chase leads to a different town where she ends up caught up in a small pair of lies, and also has an affair with a younger man, who works in one of the boats, she thinks her lover has gone, or has he.?

When the time comes for her to accept that she is running out of funds and can no longer stay in this town, she leaves her younger love, leaving him in the same predicament that she was left with before she came here. And when she returns, her partner is there, and silently takes her and they dance, what is obviously a very smooth combination..... still not clear whether he is her lover or not, but it is clear that they move very well together.

The film is slow, and the music is the Mexican variety used in the dance halls, and is not what we might like to appreciate, but it is the background, with very nice and romantic touches of what appears to be a very well designed film about dancing..... though we wonder if the chemistry is about sensual pleasures, or more than that.... Julia is about more than that, as is her partner, even if they are not connected.

Very interesting film, slow at times, and very subtle.... all the ship names at port have a hopeless ideal in love, and the lyrics in the many songs in the film are shown in the sub titles as a meaningfull way for Julia to think. Not a great film, but a very nice film that is very slow developing, but the main character's desire and acting ability just keeps us tied to it... and curious to find out what will become of it all.

3 GIBLOONS