Tango Bar (1988) is a movie about tango the dance, clearly made by people who love the tango. Its plot, such as it is, concerns the return to Argentina of Antonio (Ruben Juarez), a bandoneon player and singer who has fled the reign of the military in the 1970s and 1980s, and his reunion with his creative partner, a pianist and songwriter, Ricardo (Raul Julia). Ricardo, a Puerto Rican immigrant, has chosen to stay in Buenos Aires to run 'Tango Bar' with Antonio's wife, Elena (Valerie Lynch), who is also a tango singer. Such romantic triangles are very reminiscent of many tango lyrics; it can also be seen as an allegory of the exiled artist's relationship with Argentine during and after the 'Dirty War'. However don't get the wrong idea. Character, ideas and plot are all secondary, tango is the star. Throughout the movie, there are flashbacks to the duo's sellout show 11 years earlier, called 'Este es Tango' (This is Tango), and these flashbacks are the real heart of the movie. They include a series of dance sequences that illustrate the history of the tango. One or two are a little dated (as always the 'up-to-date' ones) but the best (and there are many highlights) are beautifully danced to wonderful music. For me, the highlights are an antique style tango danced in a sumptuous Buenos Aires brothel, a 1920s European style tango (halfway between tango argentino and ballroom tango) and, the pinnacle, an authentic 'tango argentino' danced in its proper setting by its true devotees. This last is, in many ways, the best tango in any movie, and I include Sally Potter's much vaunted 'Tango Lesson' and even Carlos Saura's 'Tango'. As Antonio says in introducing it, this is tango danced "the right way" by the people who dance it best; it is also a beautifully composed sequence. It comes at the end of a series of delightful but increasingly bizarre Hollywood tangos. In sum, this is not a great movie but it is a movie suffused with a total passion for the tango. I can't comment what it would do for someone who is not a tango nut but for this tango nut, it is a hidden gem!