They Shot the Piano Player Review: Art’s Endurance Over Oppression – An Inspired Experiment

They Shot the Piano Player comes from the creative pairing of director Fernando Trueba and illustrator Javier Mariscal. Trueba is an acclaimed Spanish filmmaker with several high-profile projects under his belt, including an Oscar win for 1992’s Belle Epoque. Mariscal is a prominent cartoonist and designer based in Madrid. The two previously joined forces for the animated romantic drama Chico & Rita in 2010, which earned them an Oscar nomination.

Their latest outing is a hybrid docudrama focused on Brazilian musician Francisco Tenório Júnior, a rising star in the 1960s bossa nova scene who mysteriously vanished in 1976 during a concert tour stop in Buenos Aires. Tenório Júnior was just 24 years old when he was disappeared under Argentina’s brutal military dictatorship – his death was never officially confirmed. Trueba and Mariscal tell this tragic story through interviews with Tenório Júnior’s friends and family, animated in a lush, hand-drawn style.

But the co-directors also implement an elaborate fictional framing device. We’re introduced to Jeff Harris, an American journalist voiced by Jeff Goldblum who heads to Rio de Janeiro to write a book on the origins of bossa nova. While researching, Harris discovers Tenório Júnior’s little-known story and makes finding out the truth behind the pianist’s disappearance his new obsession. This narrative gambit allows Trueba and Mariscal to combine documentary footage with dramatic reenactments and musical interludes to offer a multi-faceted exploration of Tenório Júnior’s shortened legacy.

Seeking Truth Among the Stars of Bossa Nova

The film chronicles New York writer Jeff Harris as he jets down to Rio de Janeiro in 2009 to pen a book on bossa nova, the breezy, syncopated Brazilian music style that took the world by storm in the late 1950s. Harris is portrayed as an enthusiastic jazz fan but not an expert on bossa nova’s origins. While the initial setup frames his journey almost like a colorful travelogue, Harris soon becomes wrapped up in a decades-old mystery.

During his research listening sessions, Harris comes across an obscure album led by late pianist and composer Francisco Tenório Júnior. The phenomenal playing captures Harris’s attention, but he learns Tenório Júnior vanished at age 24 after being targeted by the Argentine junta. Resolving to find out what truly happened, Harris’s lighthearted musical exploration morphs into an investigative reporting mission about the charismatic Tenório Júnior.

Harris is not alone in his quest for the truth. Two allies aid his amateur sleuthing: his old college friend, João, acts as Harris’s fixer in Rio’s music scene, and his editor Jessica pushes him to corroborate facts and seek out eyewitnesses. Harris also interacts with numerous real-life legends of Brazilian music. Interviews with the likes of Caetano Veloso, Chico Buarque and João Gilberto add personal color to Tenório Júnior’s journey while contextualizing his rise as part of the booming bossa nova club scene.

These luminaries provide firsthand accounts of Tenório Júnior and close perspectives on his fateful final days in Argentina. Long-standing suspicions around the vicious regime provide clues, but no concrete resolution for Harris. Still, through these candid conversations brought vividly to life through animation, a fuller picture of Tenório Júnior starts to emerge – along with the fragility of artistic expression against state violence. We may not get all the answers, but we feel the absence left by this silenced star.

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Capturing Truth Through Artistic Expression

The visual palette of They Shot the Piano Player pops with the same vibrant hues and propulsive rhythms as bossa nova itself. Trueba and Mariscal opt for an impressionistic, hand-drawn animation style defined by thick black outlines and blocks of bright, almost primary colors. Shading and precision take a backseat to kinetic energy and emotion. This raw, painterly look evokes both salsa music’s feverish energy and the Brazilian modernism of artists like Tarsila do Amaral.

Stylistically, the film has clear connections to the directors’ previous outing, Chico & Rita. That movie also utilized a similar hand-animated approach to dramatize the tumultuous romance between two Cuban musicians. However, their latest project relies more heavily on rotoscoping to incorporate live-action documentary footage. The animators trace over video interviews with bossa nova notables to embed their commentary directly, though this technique lends certain sequences an overly static, lifeless affect.

This varied implementation of animation works best when envisioning abstract ideas or bringing archival moments to life. We visually traverse the development of bossa nova against the rising authoritarian tide of Operation Condor. Dramatic snapshots, like Ella Fitzgerald catching a young Tenório Júnior’s set, burst with surreal verve. Animated musical interludes sizzle as colors bleed with psychedelic euphoria. More sobering scenes, like Tenório Júnior’s presumed death in custody, rely more on emotional dialogue and haunting silhouettes.

Some reviewers argue a straightforward documentary approach may have packed more punch. But the animation adds layers of subjectivity and interpretation while honoring how Tenório Júnior lived – through his music. The visuals externalize memory and trauma in a way live-action reenactments may not. Does this balance of fact and feeling always cohere? Not entirely. But in using animation’s capacity for abstraction, Trueba and Mariscal take Tenório Júnior’s incomplete story and give us something closer to the truth.

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The Rhythm and Rule of Artistic Freedom

Before digging into Tenório Júnior’s tragedy, They Shot the Piano Player transports us to the beatnik paradise of bossa nova’s midcentury Rio heyday. Bossanova literally translates to “new bump” – a reference to its rhythm, but also the radical cultural movement stirring. Hell-bent on modernizing Brazilian music, young artists like Johnny Alf began merging American jazz and Sinatra-style pop with samba’s propulsive percussion.

The film conveys why this fresh hybrid swept the nation through animated performances at legendary clubs like Beco das Garrafas. Here, a cohort of unconventionally gorgeous musical soulmates like Vinícius de Moraes found dizzying new forms of expression. We witness Tenório Júnior as he soaked up that scene’s creative spirit before emerging as a virtuoso bandleader and pianist by age 22. Friends describe Tenório Júnior as a prodigy who played with remarkable technical skill but also sensitivity and emotion.

This flowering of culture collided with the political plots unfolding across Latin America. They Shot the Piano Player deftly tracks the dominos of dictatorship falling as Operation Condor brought totalitarian rule to Brazil, Argentina, Chile and others through coordinated U.S-backed coups. Such authoritarian regimes instinctively moved to crush artistic dissent. When Tenório Júnior embarked on an Argentine tour in 1976, he unknowingly walked into a death trap.

Trueba and Mariscal splice the darkness creeping across the region with bright flashes of musical revolution. But the film never sugarcoats the violence that snuffed out Tenório Júnior and so many other artists. Animation lends surreality when recounting his kidnapping and torture. Yet the most devastating moments come from plainspoken interviews. We feel the pall cast over not just Tenório Júnior’s inner circle, but Latin America’s promise of a freer future. The piano may fall silent, but the music plays on.

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Balancing Truth and Storytelling

The most divisive creative choice made by Trueba and Mariscal is framing Tenório Júnior’s tale through a fictional character’s journey rather than taking a straight documentary approach. Some critics argue this narrative gambit dilutes the truth-seeking mission at the story’s heart. However, using Jeff Harris as the audience’s guide into this case allows the co-directors more flexibility to incorporate disparate genres and narrative modes.

Following Harris as he uncovers the mystery piece by piece makes for an engaging dramatic arc as we experience shocking revelations right alongside him. Harris’s outsider perspective grants the filmmakers more leeway to provide context on relevant historical events and music history without veering into rote exposition. We’re discovering bossa nova and the political unrest gripping Latin America in tandem with Harris thanks to this conceit.

However, appending a largely factual account onto a fabricated storyline creates certain structural awkwardness when the fiction strains credulity. Contrived plot points like Harris ditching his book project to pursue amateur sleuthing work better on paper than portrayed visually. And the chronological order Harris investigates the case obligates repetitive testimony as new witnesses echo previous information. A documentarian could intercut these threads for clarity.

Yet the animation format means Trueba and Mariscal aren’t bound to any single genre’s constraints. Musical reveries mesmerize then snap back to stark testimony. Photojournalism reals integrate with hallucinatory rotoscoping. By filtering everything through Harris’s narrative, the co-directors harness animation’s fluid subjectivity to reconcile these disparate pieces into a affecting, if scattered, mosaic. Does it all flow seamlessly? Perhaps not. But as with Tenório Júnior’s own tragically fractured legacy, there’s poignancy in picking up the pieces.

Truth Through Music, Defiance Through Art

At its core, They Shot the Piano Player explores how geopolitical oppression cannot crush the artistic impulse towards human truths and liberty. Tenório Júnior’s fate under the Argentine dictatorship represents countless creative spirits snuffed out by despotic regimes across Latin America. Yet his enduring musical legacy epitomizes how freedom of expression perseveres despite institutional violence seeking to silence dissent.

The film emphasizes how Tenório Júnior was not targeted for radical politics like many desaparecidos, but simply for daring to create art not dictated by fascist parameters. His only “crime” was being a musician with leftist friends – false pretext for authorities to detain and execute him. Trueba and Mariscal imply international collusion too, noting the CIA involvement in Chile and Argentina’s coups. Global superpowers enable such human rights atrocities through arms and training, we’re reminded.

Amongst the darker themes, There Shot the Piano Player strives to memorialize Tenório Júnior and the verve of mid-century Rio that nurtured his gift. Animated scenes capturing the explosion of bossa nova celebrate artistic passion and solidarity while commemorating erased histories. Tenório Júnior’s eclectic cohort of collaborators and admirers share joyful recollections between somber reflections. Though gone, his enduring spirit comes through in the music and memories – defiance towards those who work to disappear beautiful art.

As the film shows, oppressive forces may try stunting culture through violence, but artistic urge always breaks the surface. Like bossa nova itself, innovative art emerges even under stricture to channel truth and catharsis. They Shot the Piano Player ultimately argues the lifeforce behind art will outweigh any authoritarianSTAMP seeking to define culture through bloodshed or fear. Tenório Júnior lasts through the collective soul of the music itself – the film’s animated flourishes breathe continuity through his stolen genius.

An Imperfect Portrait Bursting with Artistic Passion

They Shot the Piano Player may have muted mainstream breakout potential compared to past animated documentaries like Waltz with Bashir. This ambitious hybrid’s fluid integration of truth and drama doesn’t fully realize eitherstrand. Factual revelations unfold with more repetitive frankness than slick suspense. Fictional devices distract from the documentary’s sobering import at times. Not all of the production’s disparate legs stand steadily.

Yet there is plenty to admire in the risks Fernando Trueba and Javier Mariscal take melding animation with live interviews and recreated scenes. The film brings color and visual expression to archival photos while resurrecting erased histories. Battle-scarred testaments from those who endured Operation Condor’s shadow gain new resonance visualized through art. Moments of musical rapture provide euphoric uplift between haunted recollections of state terror’s cost.

While it may not garner the same awards attention as past documentaries utilizing animation’s versatility, They Shot the Piano Player makes a case for the burgeoning form’s immersive power. Viewers open to unconventional narratives that interweave memory, music, and tragedy will find the story’s fragmented presentation shapes an affecting mosaic. Despite imperfect execution, the passion fueling both Francisco Tenório Júnior’s abbreviated art and this tribute to his genius come through clear and true.

When truth proves elusive, there is catharsis in reconstructing beauty from artifacts. They Shot the Piano Player reassembles Tenório Júnior’s legacy note by gorgeous note, even if the complete score remains obscured by the fog of war that claimed him. What emerges feels truer for the noticeable affordances in portraying forbidden histories. Crafting comprehensive truth is its own art – one that Trueba and Mariscal exercise with emotional integrity, if not masterful technique. For the stories that survive, flawed yet resilient, there is redemption in the telling.

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