The Tango Lesson 1997 ***

Sally Potter is one of Britain’s least celebrated directors, but her idiosyncratic take of cinema aesthetics makes her work well worth seeking out for anyone with a yearning for original content. Her follow-up to Orlando is a personal project; she casts herself as Sally, and the film is a likably oddball drama about the trials and tribulations that she goes through as she attempts to learn the tango. There’s no Step Up dance competitions here; Sally falls for Pablo (dancer Pablo Verson) and their affair with each other, and with the dance, takes her on a voyage of self-discovery to Argentina. The Tango Lesson was accused of self-indulgence, but Potter deserves credit for putting herself centre-stage; beautifully photographed by Robby Muller, her film is a mature and passionate film about male/female relationships, rendered in the physical arena of dance.