Carlos Gardel is great, but Las luces de Buenos Aires is kind of a mess

Is this worth watching today? Honestly, only if you have a soft spot for the early days of sound or if you just really, really love tango. If you’re looking for a deep story with twists, you’re gonna be bored out of your mind in twenty minutes. But for folks who like seeing Carlos Gardel before he became an untouchable icon, it’s a neat little time capsule. 🎸

The whole thing starts with a headhunter looking for talent in the country. He finds these two sisters and basically promises them the moon. They’re excited, of course, because who wouldn't want to leave a dusty farm for the big city? It reminds me a little of the sibling dynamic in Bad Sister, but with way more singing and way less actual character development.

Once they get to Buenos Aires, the movie kind of forgets what it's doing for a while. The city is supposed to be this big, scary place that eats people up, but it mostly just looks like a series of very clean stages. There’s a lot of standing around and talking about feelings that we don't really see happen on screen.

The pacing is weird. Some scenes go on forever, like the director just forgot to yell cut because he was enjoying the music too much. Then other important plot points happen so fast you might miss them if you blink to clear the dust from your eyes. It has that clunky, early 1930s rhythm where nobody is quite sure how fast a movie should move yet.

But let’s talk about Carlos Gardel. The man just has this energy. He isn't even doing that much half the time, just leaning against things or smiling, but you can't help but look at him. When he finally sings "Tomo y Obligo," the movie actually stops being a mediocre drama and becomes something special for a few minutes. You can tell everyone on set knew that was the only reason people bought a ticket.

The sisters are... fine. They spend a lot of time looking worried or impressed by things that aren't that impressive. One of them has this habit of clutching her hands to her chest whenever she’s sad, which is every five minutes. It gets a bit repetitive, like she only had one acting lesson and that was the only thing she learned.

Cinematic perspective: Exploring the visual vocabulary of Las luces de Buenos Aires (1931) through its definitive frames.

I noticed the background extras in the city scenes look incredibly stiff. It’s like they were told if they moved an inch, they’d break the expensive new microphones. There's a guy in a cafe scene who just stares at his coffee for three straight minutes without taking a sip. I started wondering if the coffee was cold or if he was just having an existential crisis in the middle of a musical. ☕

The transition from the rural scenes to the urban ones feels a bit jarring. The movie wants us to feel the "lights" are blinding, but it just feels like they moved from one set to a slightly more expensive set. It lacks that grit you see in something like São Paulo, Sinfonia da Metrópole, which actually feels like a city breathing.

There is this one scene where a character gets rejected and the camera stays on their face for a solid ten seconds too long. It stops being sad and starts being awkward. You just want to reach into the screen and give them a nudge. "Okay, we get it, you're sad, let's move on to the next song."

The script is pretty predictable, too. You know exactly who is going to be the villain the second they walk on screen because they have that specific "I am a jerk" mustache. There's no subtlety here. It’s all very loud and very obvious, which I guess was the style at the time, but it makes it hard to stay invested in the stakes.

Still, there’s a charm to the messiness. It feels like a group of people trying their best with tech they don't fully understand yet. It’s not a masterpiece, and it definitely won't change your life. It's just a mood. A slightly dusty, tango-filled mood that smells like old tobacco and pomade.

A few things I scribbled down:

• Gardel's hair is unbelievably shiny. How much grease did they use?
• The "city" looks suspiciously like three streets and a very loud club.
• Why does everyone talk like they’re shouting across a canyon?
• That one hat the scout wears is a crime against fashion. 🎩
• The ending feels like they ran out of film and just decided to stop.

If you're bored on a Sunday and want to hear some top-tier singing, give it a go. Just don't expect the plot to make much sense or the acting to be anything other than extreme. It’s a bit like looking at an old postcard—pretty to look at, but you can't really live in it.

I’ve seen better "big city is bad" movies from this era, like maybe Ocean Swells in terms of just pure vibes, but this one has the advantage of Gardel. And sometimes, a guy with a guitar and a great voice is enough to carry a whole hour of nonsense.