Is this technically a gay show? Even after getting through the whole thing, that's still kind of tricky to answer. There's never any physical intimacy shown between the two leads, not even a single kiss. What it gives you instead is something that goes way deeper than that. It traces an emotional bond that spans a full decade between two guys who are both dealing with their own baggage, and what they share basically amounts to being soulmates. The story moves across Japan, South Korea, and Berlin. Honestly, whether people want to call what they have a romantic relationship or not doesn't really matter to me. A relationship doesn't need a label like boyfriends attached to it to actually mean something. And closeness doesn't need to be physical to feel genuine. What this show captures is something quieter but way more powerful, a bond rooted in understanding, respect, and just showing up for each other. Across eight episodes, each running 35 to 45 minutes, this is one...
The film documents two years of a gay couple Misha and Otar before their immigration to Israel. The images of the documentary preserved their lives and emotions in the decision making process. While organizing queer tango events and giving tango classes, they are feeling lost about the upcoming departure. Tango is a pair dance that originated in the poor port areas of Argentina at the end of the 19th century. It was danced by men, emigrants from Southern Europe, Africa, South America. The dance expressed their suffering about the abandoned homeland, family and loved ones. As society changes, how we dance changes too. In the modern time the international queer community reinvented it as Queer Tango. It's a different way to dance, where nobody takes your gender, sexual orientation or choice of role for granted. Like any other popular dance, it is a mirror of the society in which it was developed and from which it emerges. It reflects life and helps people express their complex feelings through dance. People have always moved in search of better living conditions and escaping dramatic political environment in their homeland. The rising level of homophobia in Russia forces many gays and lesbians to leave their country and seek refuge abroad. When narrow-minded traditionalism and xenophobia are rife in the country, tango leads you forward move by move, no matter what gender, sexual orientation or nationality you have.
Even though some of the dance performances were good, just something was not right in the doucmnetry. It just failed to help my attention right from the beginning, and I am struggling to understand what it really was. The lead gay couple was handsome, charming. They were good dancers as well. So I think th basic ingredients were right, but somehow the overall recipe failed. The way the story was brought together somehow felt, not confusing, but more like "what's the point you are trying to make". It just felt disconnected at multiple points, and its a shame because with a subject like this, which personally I would have enjoyed, just became so drab and boring at a certain point that I just couldn't believe and kept asking myself "Why Am I still watching this?". Maybe I was not in the right frame of mind and someone other me can educate me a little more on what was I missing, but as it stands now, I did not enjoy watching this doc even one bit and would not recommend. (2/10)
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