In 2010, a journalist from New Yorker investigation into the mysterious disappearance of a Brazilian pianist kidnapped in Buenos Aires in 1978.
In line with Lipsett’s journalsby Theodore Ushev, by Ryanby Chris Landreth, and Waltz with Bashirby Ari Folman, They Shot the Piano Player (They shot the pianist in French version), by Javier Mariscal and Fernando Trueba, is an animated film that subtly blurs the boundaries between documentary and fiction. After realizing Chico and Ritaa tribute to the Cuban jazz pianist and composer Bebo Valdés, with Toni Errando, brother of Mariscal, it seemed only natural that the two Spanish directors would turn to another jazz pianist.
This time, it is the Brazilian Francisco Tenório Júnior, virtuoso pianist and master of bossa nova, little known to the general public, but celebrated by his peers. Having recorded only one album in 1964, at age 23Embalo, Tenório also accompanied musicians on around fifteen records. In May 1978, while on tour with Vinicius de Moraes, author of the song The girl from Ipanimaby Carlos Jobim, and Toquinho, he mysteriously disappears in Buenos Aires.
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Scene from They Shot the Piano Player
They Shot the Piano Player, whose title is a nod to Truffaut’s film Shoot the pianist (1960), begins in 2010, in New York. Alongside his editor (Roberta Wallach), Jeff Harris (Jeff Goldlum), (fictional) journalist from New Yorkertells readers who came to attend the launch of his book the investigation he carried out to discover the circumstances of the disappearance.
Easily alternating between different eras, adopting various styles depending on the context, bringing jazz legends to life, from Ella Fitzgerald to João Gilberto via Bebo Valdés, the film reveals itself as a living dive into the golden age of bossa -nova against the backdrop of a political crisis that is both fascinating and tedious.
By choosing animation rather than live-action documentary, Mariscal and Trueba, who conducted nearly 150 interviews for the film, ensured that they could evoke with poetry, sensuality and fantasy the wild nights of jazz clubs where evolved Tenório. However, in certain passages, the images move according to a rhythm that lacks fluidity and the colors are garish.
Despite their efforts to avoid delivering a series of talking heads and bewitching musical tracks, the fact remains that They Shot the Piano Player lines up wordy interviews. In some cases, particularly in archive extracts, the sound is poor and creates an annoying gap with the voices of the other speakers. Especially the suave one of Jeff Goldblum.
They Shot the Piano Player is presented in theaters in the original version (Portuguese, Spanish, English) with French subtitles and in the original version with English subtitles.
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Animation Film
They Shot the Piano Player (V. F.: They shot the pianist)
Javier Mariscal and Fernando Trueba
With the voices of Jeff Goldblum, Tony Ramos, Roberta Wallach
1:43 a.m.