‘Farewell Amor’: Dancers Without Borders

Esther, a committed Christian, says she’s been faithful in her husband’s absence; there’s no reason to disbelieve her. That’s not the case with Walter, who once dreamed of being a journalist but who drives a taxi, and it isn’t clear whether he can cut loose from the coils of an obsessive love. Meanwhile, he and his increasingly suspicious wife are simultaneously reunited and estranged.

It’s hard to make a first feature on what was clearly a limited budget (although you wouldn’t infer any limits from the elegantly spare cinematography by Bruce Francis Cole ). The early awkwardness between husband and wife is staged awkwardly. And the organizing idea of the story is more often discussed than developed dramatically. It’s dancing. When Esther and Walter were young lovers in Angola during that nation’s ravaging civil war, they lived in the moment, and words meant nothing, as he recalls, “so we danced.” (After Walter left, we learn, mother and daughter fled from the war to Tanzania.) Now love of dancing may be the only thing Walter has in common with his angry, almost silent daughter, and it’s the only way she may be able to express herself in her new high school, where she’s a cultural stranger but dazzlingly fluent in dance.

That’s not to say we don’t get to see the members of this fractured family in rhythmic action. What they do is enchanting, though that’s not quite the word for Sylvia’s spasmodic, shocking, furiously confrontational and altogether sensational moves in a school competition. It’s just that the dances don’t quite build as one suspects they might have if the filmmaker, Ms. Msangi, had had more time and resources at her disposal.

Remarkably, though, some of the most affecting moments of her flawed but distinctive film come when Walter, Esther and Sylvia simply talk about dancing with irrepressible fondness. One of the great strengths of “Farewell Amor” is its intimacy, the sense it conveys of three people close together yet emotionally distant in Walter’s small, narrow Brooklyn apartment. (The camera, sometimes motionless as cameras are in Japanese cinema, does well conveying narrowness on a wide screen.) Another strength, and a huge one, is Mr. Mwine’s portrayal of Walter, beset as he is by regret, guilt and longing. It’s a haunting performance that combines rueful tones with physical grace. Walter’s American life has been one of mistakes and disappointments, yet the man still has dancing eyes.

Write to Joe Morgenstern at [email protected]