Under Tango Road – Supernatural Psychological Thriller
by Anna Maria Elisa Manalo
Logline: A young Spanish matador moves to Mexico to overcome his guilt about accidentally killing his daughter – only to find, when he attempts to escape from authorities, that he has been dead all along.
Synopsis: JOSE BANA, 31 years old, was a rising star of the Seville bullring. Prematurely retired due to a bullfighting injury, he moves to Mexico, where he meets up with childhood friend and fellow bullfighter, MARCO. Marco introduces him to the local society where he falls for a young beautiful woman, SABINA. However, one night his idyllic life is shattered when Jose sees his wife’s “ghost” standing by his new apartment window. He is terrified that she may have survived and has followed him to expose a crime.
Nightmares of his tragic past and further visits from Elena escalate his sense of apprehension and a dawning awareness of guilt. On the way to a church where he encounters a faceless monk, he finds Marco lying in a casket inside a church window. The strange silence he receives from his friends cause Jose’s health and sanity to unravel. As he plans to flee back to Spain, his passport is stolen. Jose has a scuffle with the thief who flees, is hit by a bus, only to miraculously recover after surrendering the passport back to Jose.
Jose becomes fearful of seeing Elena’s ghost in his apartment, so Marco takes him in as he recovers from the scuffle. To Jose’s horror, he finds Elena’s clothes in Marco’s armoire. Jose concludes Marco is “the other man” he suspected Elena was seeing in Seville. A nightmare takes us to Seville where in a jealous rage Jose lashes out at his wife and accidentally pushes his four-year-old daughter over a balcony, killing her.
Fear, guilt, confusion, entrapment and anger overtake the formerly confident man as he comes face to face with his past. He awakens after a nightmare to find Elena’s rain-soaked sandals at his doorstep. Convinced she is there to seek justice, he attempts to escape to the airport in Marco’s car. En route, the car plummets into a ravine. Jose awakens to find his friends around him. Eager to reveal the truth, they escort him to the church on Tango Road. In a crypt room underneath, they show him their graves: they are all dead. Jose had died from his injuries 20 years ago. His friends had joined him in the afterlife in the hope of assisting him in his redemption by helping him to acknowledge his crimes and seek forgiveness.
