«They Shot The Piano Player», a documentary thriller at the time of Bossa Nova

2024-01-31 18:18:32

They Shot The Piano Player ***

by Fernando Trueba and Javier Mariscal

Spanish, French, Dutch and Portuguese animated film, 1h44

But where did Francisco Tenório Jr go? Is he dead or alive? The question is still on the lips of those who knew this virtuoso Brazilian pianist, who died in 1976 in Buenos Aires, on the eve of the military coup. After having belatedly discovered his one and only record (the very beautiful Lullaby, released in 1964), Spanish filmmaker Fernando Trueba embarked on an investigation across Europe and the Americas to find his trail. It is this investigation that he recounts by fictionalizing and animating it, with his friend, the Catalan illustrator Javier Mariscal, in They Shot The Piano Player.

A title that alludes to Shoot the pianist, by Truffaut, a nod to the New Wave which emerged at the same time as Bossa Nova, of which Tenorio accompanied the most eminent representatives. After having made an excellent documentary on Latin jazz (Calle 542000), then Chico and Rita (2011) an animated fiction paying homage to jazz and Cuban music of the 1940s and 1950s, the Spanish filmmaker undertakes to retrace the history of the musical movement born in Brazil at the end of the 1950s.

Remember and warn about current abuses

By holding these two common threads with a mastery specific to great storytellers, Fernando Trueba takes the viewer into a gripping thriller about a New York journalist investigating Tenorio, a gentle but slightly crazy character, entirely devoted to his music, and a documentary on the epic of Bossa Nova, which conquered the planets with the swaying tunes of João Gilberto, Vinícius de Moraes and António Carlos Jobim.

Only animation allowed the two directors to carry out this double story, offering them the possibility of bringing to life, thanks to the expressive drawing of Javier Mariscal assisted by the cartoonist Marcello Quintanilha, the pianist who disappeared like the bars of Rio, cradles of Bossa Nova where it was not uncommon to see Ella Fitzgerald improvising on catchy tunes… As in Josep or Waltz with Bashirthe cartoon technique is however reduced to its simplest expression, but makes its summary character a strength, placing the narration at the forefront.

By its title, They Shot The Piano Player However, it “discloses” the outcome of the investigation somewhat. A conclusion which shows how cultural freedom is shattered by the brutality of authoritarian regimes. Or how the momentum of an entire generation was broken by the military coups of the 1970s. In this sense, the film is a work of memory, while warning of the risks of current political excesses. In Argentina, as elsewhere.

• No ! * Why not ** Good film *** Very good film **** Masterpiece