CANNES, France (Reuters) - Passion, dance and cruelty are at the centre of Spanish film director Carlos Saura`s latest opus "Tango", presented at the Cannes Festival on Friday. "I`ve had a loving and sentimental relationship with the tango since I was a child," said Saura, a jovial man of 66 with wisps of grey hair nearly to his shoulders. Shot simultaneously with several cameras in a studio with sophisticated and theatrical lighting and sets, the film, a sensual tribute to the tango, is the most expensive Argentine production ever made. "I used to dance the tango a lot in youth, but in the European fashion which is at the opposite extreme to the way it is done in Argentina," said Saura who grew up in a musical environment. "Tango" tells the story of Mario Suarez (Miguel Angel Sola), a talented Argentine director whose wife Laura has just left him. He decides to drown his sorrows by throwing himself into a new cinematic project devoted to the tango. During the auditions, he meets Elena Flores (Mia Maestro) a beautiful young woman and tango dancer recommended by the film`s main investor, the gangster Angelo Larroca (Juan Luis Galiardo), who is also her lover. Images and memories of Mario`s own life flow through his film, where mesmerising dance numbers evoke the dark years of the military dictatorship as well as the arrival of European immigrants at the beginning of the century. Throughout the rehearsals, Elena and Mario are drawn together by an irrepressible and dangerous passion, but Larocca is always there, watching jealously over his mistress. Reality and illusion are so subtly blended that the girl`s death appears real to the spectator until the final scene when it is revealed to be part of a rehearsal. Saura is no stranger to musical films, "Tango" being his sixth in the genre. Saura also manages to introduce in his film an element of the fantastic so uniquely Spanish, in a scene depicting the Argentina`s dirty war. "It was a very difficult scene. Musical films don`t usually express criticism in a deep way. And we needed a scene that would be brutal, and a ballet that would be violent and aggressive, which we don`t often see in musicals."