ode to bossa nova and investigation into a disappearance, a tribute to a Latin America crushed by military dictatorships

When a simple report on the remains of bossa nova in Rio branches off into a quasi-police investigation surrounding the disappearance of a great Brazilian pianist… A fascinating musical, historical and nostalgic journey where we come across immense legends of music, from Vinícius de Moraes to Chico Buarque, from Jobim to Caetano Veloso, but also Ella Fitzgerald, Bill Evans and Bebo Valdés.

In the animated film They Shot the Piano Player, in theaters from January 31, it is a Spanish tandem which looks at a golden age of Brazilian music, that of bossa nova, born in Rio in the 1950s, before conquering the world at the beginning of the 1960s. Winner of an Academy Award for Best Foreign Film for Belle Epoque (1992), Fernando Trueba is a director, screenwriter and music producer. Javier Mariscal is an illustrator, comic book author, graphic designer, painter. The two artists know each other well. They already co-directed the animated film Chico and Rita (2011), an immersion in the world of Cuban jazz. The title They Shot the Piano Player is a nod to François Truffaut’s film Shoot the pianist (1960). He recalls that two major artistic movements, bossa nova in Brazil and the New Wave in France, emerged at the same time, and that Truffaut had a strong impact on certain Brazilian artists.

For their second collaboration, Trueba and Mariscal tell an authentic and dramatic story, that of the Brazilian jazz pianist Francisco Tenório Júnior, who disappeared on the eve of the coup d’état in Argentina in March 1976, after a concert in Buenos Aires, during a tour with the poet and author Vinícius de Moraes, icon of Brazil. A disappearance that occurred at a time when almost all of Latin America had fallen under the yoke of military juntas. Fernando Trueba discovered the existence of Tenório in 2005, in Brazil, while listening to a jazz record. Initially, he thought of devoting a classic documentary to this pianist. He carried out more than 150 interviews with musicians, but also with relatives of the deceased, some of whom had never spoken before. Subsequently, delighted by the result of his first collaboration with Javier Mariscal on the animated film Chico and Rita, he decided to repeat the experience.

Double investigation between Brazil and Argentina

The scenario begins in New York in 2009. Following a notable article on bossa nova in the New Yorker, American journalist Jeff Harris was invited to write a book on this musical movement. During a conference in a bookstore, he presents the fruit of his work, his travels, his meetings. In front of a captivated audience, he remembers.

During his preliminary research, listening to a piano solo on a jazz CD caught his attention. A solo by an illustrious unknown, Tenório Júnior, whose career had ended thirty years earlier. So, Jeff Harris leaves for Rio with the desire to know more about this pianist with a meteoric career, alongside work on his book. He takes a room with a view of Ipanema beach, then he meets a friend, João, who gives him access to the Brazilian musical world. João remembers Tenório, “one of the great figures of samba jazz” during bossa nova, he said. He entrusts leads and contacts to Jeff across the American continent…

They Shot the Piano Player, it is a double investigation which navigates between different temporalities. There is the history of bossa nova. There are the confidences and memories of the artists, in their animated avatars, but with their real voices. Same process for witnesses to the life and career of Tenório. The mystery of his disappearance becomes clearer little by little, like a puzzle that Jeff Harris pieces together piece by piece. Jeff is the fictional alter ego of Fernando Trueba. An alter ego served by the voice of Jeff Goldblum, actor, pianist and jazz enthusiast.

Animation has many advantages. The different places, eras and atmospheres are distinguished by tonal changes in the graphics. The Rio of bossa nova exults in its shimmering colors, its joie de vivre, a reflection of the carefree era which saw the birth of this musical phenomenon. A golden period whose days were numbered, since in 1964, a military regime was established in Brazil. The Buenos Aires of Tenório’s disappearance is gray, dark, disturbing.

Through Jeff’s investigation, prestigious musical encounters unfold: Gilberto Gil, Chico Buarque, Caetano Veloso, Milton Nascimento, João Donato, Edu Lobo, without forgetting João Gilberto and the Cuban pianist Bebo Valdés… We see them and we listen to them talk, sometimes play and sing, through the graphics of Javier Mariscal designed in a comic book spirit. The same goes for the other witnesses: club boss, music producer, sound engineer, and of course those close to Tenório.

Bossa nova, symbol of lost joy and carefreeness

Thus unified by animation, Trueba and Mariscal’s film invites us on a journey through time that is at once marvelous, nostalgic and nightmarish. The marvelous thing is these authentic anecdotes for which there were no photos: Ella Fitzgerald rushing, after a concert at the Copacabana Palace, to a small club to go dancing and singing samba… Vinícius de Moraes having a drink in a restaurant with a friend – who looks a lot like the producer Aloysio de Oliveira – who encourages him to speak to the lonely young man sitting at the back of the room, a penniless arranger called Tom Jobim, to offer to compose music for his next play… This meeting was the dawn of “the happiest marriage in the history of Brazilian music”, Jeff’s friend marvels as he shows him around.

The dream rubs shoulders with hell, that of the military dictatorships which fell on Latin America, and the ever-present sadness of an irremediable loss. With Tenório Júnior, we discover not only a gifted pianist, but an extraordinary human being, much loved by his peers, destined for a brilliant career. “If he had lived, Brazilian music would have been different. Because he was a very special guy. As if he had been elected to achieve things”, confides one of his musician friends… A splendid and moving film, not to be missed.

The sheet

Gender : Animated film, Musical biopic
Directors : Fernando Trueba and Javier Mariscal
With : the testimonies of Edu Lobo, Gilberto Gil, Chico Buarque, Caetano Veloso, Milton Nascimento, Toquinho, Roberto Menescal, Paulo Moura, Bud Shank…
Dubbings : Jeff Goldblum, Roberta Wallach, Tony Ramos…
Country : Spain, France, Portugal, Peru, Netherlands
Duration : 104 minutes
Exit : January 31, 2024
Distributer : Dulac Distribution

Synopsis : A New York music journalist investigates the disappearance, on the eve of the coup d’état in Argentina, of Francisco Tenório Jr, a virtuoso Brazilian pianist. While celebrating jazz and bossa nova, the film captures a fleeting period of creative freedom at a turning point in Latin American history in the 1960s and 1970s, just before the continent fell under the yoke of totalitarian regimes.