dario grandinetti Argentinian Carlos living in Spain is in good shape as he changes his activity; Margarita (Morán) has not danced again since she left her country and dance (and life) partner. Neither is he. He lives very tightly with his friend Pichuquito (the couple’s former manager), who doesn’t care much about life, and continues in the Rosario neighborhood. Thus begins ‘The dance begins’. We speak with Grandinetti and his director and screenwriter.
Can we consider The Dance Begins as a romantic road movie that finally turns into a reflection on friendship and life itself?
Marina Seresesky: The Dance Begins may be a romantic comedy, but it’s about another love: a friendship and a love of a place.
dario grandinetti: And a trade they developed that the three characters were very passionate about.
and then there is Argentina40 years later. When a tango rink is changed to an ice rink, I guess it’s because the country changes too.
DG: All Argentines know, in one way or another, what exile means. I also wanted to tell the nostalgic, loving and affectionate story, not melancholic. Those who left miss and remember however they want, because memories are deceiving, I wanted to talk about it…
WOMAN: The past can also be a physical place, an idealized place. I’m from Argentina, I’ve been in Spain for 24 years and it’s my trip in the movie. When he returns, the person is no longer the same as before and what happened changes everything. It’s hard to go back and assume that everything has changed.
DG.: I disagree with much that has been said about not going back to your happy place. You have to go back to those places a thousand times and learn to be happy in another way.
The film shows great devotion to humor, with different tones, from the most complicit and the lightest to the darkest of natures.
WOMAN.: But we didn’t want to make a joke comedy.
DG: You get immersed and begin to portray your own mood, but it should be the mood of the characters, not yours. It is important to look from the outside. The fact that the actors, moreover, very easily let ourselves be swept away by laughter…
WOMAN.: What I wanted to do was not go overboard with comedy or tragedy; I wanted a difficult crossing, a dangerous border. And then something that fascinates me that we need to revalue, because we all carry it within us, it’s directly related to childhood ».
Why two former tango dancers, forgotten stars?
WOMAN: I wanted them to look like characters that fell out of the story to get them to present it again. They are people who feel as outside of space and time as anyone they meet on their journey around Argentina, something that is no longer there, or at least they feel that way. I wanted to look at all those people who were also Argentinian.
Like the tango itself, it is the national dance of Argentina.
WOMAN: The dance touches each other again. Tango, as everyone knows, is a dance that involves a lot of contact and above all a lot of commitment. One cannot dance with one’s head, it is a dance of the senses, releasing oneself very strongly. And that’s what happens to the heroes of the story.
DG: That’s when, after the name of the movie, the dance begins, the characters gradually reopen.