Cast: Vincent D’Onofrio, Mathilda May, Fernando Rey, Esai Morales
“Naked Tango,” the first film to be directed as well as written by Leonard Schrader, attempts to illustrate and make dramatic the gaudy background of the dance that came out of the multi-ethnic Buenos Aires underworld in the 1920’s.
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It’s about the obsessive sadomasochistic love of Stephanie (Mathilda May), the pampered French wife of a much older Argentine judge (Fernando Rey), and Cholo (Vincent D’Onofrio), the handsome young gangster who makes her his dance slave.
Cholo, a pimp by profession, has no interest in sex. He just likes to dance, dance, dance. For him the tango is better than sex, and so private that he blindfolds the three-man combo that plays for him. Sometimes he even blindfolds his female partner.
Cholo and Stephanie had met when she became a prisoner in his bordello by a route too circuitous to mention. Something about Stephanie attracted Cholo. It could have been her Louise Brooks haircut, possibly the manacles she sometimes wore. In any case, the attraction was instant and kinky.
