I'd like to meet:

Meeting them

"Orquesta Típica" started by accident when director/producer Nicolas Entel was walking through the streets of San Telmo one of Buenos Aires oldest neighborhoods. "Just as many other Argentineans my age, I didnt care much for tango until, by chance, I came across the Orquesta Típica Fernández Fierro playing on the street. First I saw twelve guys looking like wannabe rock-stars pushing a piano down the street. Then I heard them play. Their sound was as elaborate as it was raw and powerful filled with beauty and passion. It was love at first site. After that, I was also impressed by their political commitment and their understanding of music as a way of practicing cultural resistance.

Counterculture

I also discovered elements which have been historically linked to counterculture, from Dadá and cubism to jazz and punk-rock music: all these components were present in their re-interpretation of a Typical Orchestra and Tango, a genre more than a hundred years old. Finally, it was very important for me as a citizen of Buenos Aires to discover how deeply tango was rooted in my unconscious."

The film

Orquesta Típica was shot in Argentina and Uruguay, as well as during the first European tour of the Orquesta Típica Fernández Fierro, which included Holland, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, and Austria. Shooting was completed in early 2005, and was followed by eight long and harsh off-line editing months. The unusual duration of this process finds its roots in the fact that Nicolas Entel and editor Pablo Farina decided to cut the documentary employing a narrative language typically found in fiction films.

An original film

Orquesta Típica does not utilize voice over narration, and the use of on-camera interviews is brought down to a minimum. In relation to this strategy, the films director tells us: The only way to be coherent with the subject of our documentary is to make aesthetic choices as strong as the ones they make and push them to their last consequences just as the Orquesta Típica Fernández Fierro does.

The production

Santiago Melazzini, the films Director of Photography whose influences can be traced back to experimental photographyand whose world-famous animated flip books can be purchased at the MOMA in New York City, gives his opinion about the film: Tango has achieved the impossible: to be contemporary with itself; with documentaries about Tango a similar process takes place. The challenge was to achieve with the camera what Fernández Fierro accomplishes through its music to convey a sense that one is in presence of contemporary, up to date style as opposed to music from 30 years ago. We also took a few strong decisions - adds Nicolas Entel- in relation to the punk-rock nature of the project, such as utilizing amateur cameramen as if they were a sort of teenage garage guitar players. Or the fact that we always use straight cuts between shots rather than dissolves or other montage effects another resource which contributes to the films visceral feeling.