In Strangers' Arms

It is remarkable how, despite the love-hatred relationship between María and Juan Carlos, they continued to be partners in life and in tango. They met when they were 14 and 17; they danced together for half a century. In all those years they went through several separations but always came back together.

When tango entered the post-golden era, lean times for tango musicians, dancers, and milongas, by thinking of tango as an art, they took it to the stage. In 1963 they performed at the famous Ed Sullivan show in New York (Sullivan also brought the Beetles for the first time to USA). The couple starred at the 1983 musical Tango Argentino in New York, and in 2002 took their show Tanguera to New York, Paris, Berlin, Tokyo.

The film has two pillars, explains Kral: the documentary, and the choreographic that tells the story of the relationship through movements.

I appreciated the complexity this film: it took four years to complete, featured two protagonists that are not in speaking terms with one another, required several sets of dancers to represent María and Juan Carlos at different stages in their lives. María’s story begins when she was a child and ends at her age 80. She was given no script; although she did no like it, it was a touch of genius on the director’s part. For María’s personality brings us intimately close to her … I had a hard time letting her go. Although the protagonists never talked directly with each other in the film, we walk away with a clear sense of what their relationship was all about. Bravo to the director and everyone acting in this magnificent film.

German Kral (Argentinean, resides in Germany) made a film about María Nieves and Juan Carlos Copes, the iconic life long tango partners that took tango to new levels.  Kral, director and scriptwriter, engaged Wim Wenders as producer (German filmmaker, playwright, author, photographer, and a major figure in New German Cinema: Pina, Buena Vista Social Club).