Swing Time is the film in which the partnership between Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers transcends choreography and becomes a thesis on existence. It is a film about grace as the only possible response to the chaos of the modern era. It is 1936. The world is about to explode, the Depression is still biting, but here, in this hermetic universe of Art Deco and tuxedos, every problem—economic, romantic, even sartorial—can be solved by a time step. Is it escapism? Of course. But it is escapism so perfect, so formally unassailable, that it becomes a sublime, almost philosophical art form.

It is essential to understand the context. This is the sixth of ten Astaire-Rogers films, and it is the moment when the formula reaches a baroque complexity. The direction is entrusted to George Stevens, a master who is not simply a mise en scène of musical numbers (like Mark Sandrich, director of many of their hits). Stevens is a visual dramatist. Coming up through the ranks of Laurel and Hardy comedies, Stevens understands the geometry of space and the physics of gags, but he is also obsessed with psychology. Swing Time is perhaps the first musical in which the camera thinks. Stevens uses lyrical cross-fades and a depth of field that (while not yet that of Citizen Kane) isolates the characters, trapping them in Van Nest Polglase's breathtaking sets. The New York of the film is not a city; it is an Art Deco dream, a utopia of shiny surfaces, aerodynamic curves, and apartments as big as hangars, a non-place where the only industry is entertainment.

The plot, as always in these films, is an absurd contraption, a scaffolding of misunderstandings that serves only to keep the two protagonists apart until the next musical number. Lucky Garnett (Fred Astaire) is a gambler (an archetypal figure of the Depression, who lives by chance and luck) who has to go to New York to earn $25,000 in order to marry a woman he clearly does not love. There he meets Penny Carroll (Ginger Rogers), a dance teacher, and fate—in the form of a bet and a misunderstanding over a quarter—does the rest. But the plot is the MacGuffin. The real subject of the film is the inevitability of their union, a cosmic force expressed through movement. Astaire and Rogers don't fall in love and then dance; they fall in love while dancing.

Every musical number in Swing Time is not an interruption of the plot, but its emotional continuation, its sublimation. The soundtrack by Jerome Kern (music) and Dorothy Fields (lyrics) is, without hyperbole, one of the greatest in the history of cinema. There isn't an ounce of fat on it. “Pick Yourself Up” is their first real interaction: she, the competent teacher, tries to teach him, the fake beginner. But the lesson turns into a duel, a negotiation of power. He provokes her, she responds, and in three minutes of furious tap dancing, he proves himself her equal and she proves she can lead. It is the birth of a mutual respect that is already love. “The Way You Look Tonight” (which won an Oscar) is pure adoration: Astaire sings it while she has just washed her hair. It is a moment of domestic vulnerability transformed into a romantic elegy. Kern and Fields tell us that true beauty is not in glamour, but in imperfect intimacy (soapy hair).

But Swing Time goes further. It contains two of the most complex and problematic sequences of their career. The first, “A Fine Romance,” is an anti-romantic comedy in the snow (obviously fake, but who cares), where the two argue in musical counterpoint. It's their screwball side brought to perfection. The second is the cornerstone and scandal of the film: “Bojangles of Harlem.” It's the elephant in the room. It's a solo number by Astaire, a (sincere) tribute to his idol, the legendary African American dancer Bill “Bojangles” Robinson. The choreography is a technical masterpiece: Astaire dances with three giant shadows that first follow him and then move against him, in a tour de force of analog special effects that defies logic. It is Astaire pushing the boundaries of the medium. But there is a “but” as big as a house: he does it in blackface. It is impossible today to watch this sequence without feeling deeply uncomfortable. It is a document of the systemic racism of American entertainment in 1936. It is a paradox: a genuine tribute expressed through the language of oppression. Our job as critics is not to erase it, nor to forgive it; it is to understand it as the point of friction between Astaire's artistic admiration and the unbearable cultural blindness of his era.

If “Bojangles” is the technical climax, “Never Gonna Dance” is the emotional heart of the film. It is the thesis. It is, perhaps, the greatest duet ever filmed. Lucky, feeling trapped (because Penny has discovered his engagement), is about to lose her. She is hurt, he is desperate. At the top of an Art Deco spiral staircase that seems to lead to heaven (or nowhere), he sings her the poignant melody. And then they begin to dance. But this is not a dance of joy. It is a dance of farewell. It is a tragedy in the ballroom. The choreography by Hermes Pan (and Astaire, of course) is a struggle. He tries to hold her back, she tries to escape. Their movements are fluid but tense, a push-pull of desire and resignation. It's an entire relationship—the meeting, the conflict, the passion, the breakup—condensed into four minutes of movement. When, in the end, she performs a series of pirouettes that take her away from him, up the stairs, disappearing into the shadows, it's a blow to the heart more powerful than any dialogue. It's proof that for Astaire and Rogers, choreography was the language of the soul.

The ending, of course, ties everything up with the absurd logic of musicals (Lucky gets fired, which nullifies his obligation, and the two reunite), but it doesn't matter. We've already seen the truth in that dance. Swing Time is a film about the ephemeral. It is the quintessence of the Depression: happiness is a soap bubble, money is an illusion (Lucky's gambling), the only real thing is the connection you create with another person in the present moment. It's existentialism in tuxedos and tap shoes. It's art looking into the economic and social abyss and responding with a pas de deux so perfect that it makes us believe, for 103 minutes, that gravity—and reality—are just optional suggestions.