‘Our Last Tango’: Renowned dancers’ life of love, hate

Argentine tango legends María Nieves Rego and Juan Carlos Copes swung wildly between those extremes in a 50-year career that started in the working-class clubs of 1940s Buenos Aires and led to international fame.

Americans may remember them from “Tango Argentino,” a 1985 Broadway sensation.

Magic together on the dance floor, they parlayed his elegance, her speed and their chemistry into a career that lifted them out of poverty and fulfilled them as artists.

Profoundly ill-suited as spouses, they barely got along, yet always reunited to dance — until Copes’ second wife insisted that he terminate their onstage partnership.

Copes describes Nieves as “my Stradivarius,” but smugly manipulates and uses her; she rages about never having children, yet insists she has no regrets.

Nonetheless, the film is a visual feast that combines interviews with vintage footage and reenactments danced in retro clubs, on railroad trusses and in magnificent theaters.