‘Danzon’

Maria Novaro’s immensely charming and satirical 1991 Mexican film aims for the pure exhilaration of great movie musicals and romances. It’s designed to seduce the audience, just as the danzon itself--a Caribbean-Mexican ballroom step that mixes elegance, tradition and earthy spontaneity--is a mock-seduction, a pantomime of male lust and female coquetry. Her heroine (Maria Roja) is a 40ish telephone operator whose routine has its only bright spots at a Mexico City dance hall, where for six years she has had a courtly, constant dance partner (Daniel Rergis) of whom she knows little--and who disappears suddenly. In trying to find him Roja’s Julia discovers herself instead. With Tito Vasconcelos (pictured) as dancer “Susy.” (Cinemax Wednesday at 8 p.m.)