They Shot the Piano Player [2023] – ★★★

🎵 The animation vividly introduces us to the great Brazilian pianist and the music scene of his time, but falls short of being an engaging investigation-focused drama.

They Shot the Piano Player focuses on the investigative journey that one journalist (Jeff Harris) undertakes to find out what happened to Brazilian pianist Francisco Tenório Júnior who disappeared mysteriously in 1976. Tenório Júnior was a real talent in the Bossa Nova music movement in Latin America at that time, and his sudden disappearance was alarming. This is an animated film that is based on real events with some speculative elements from Javier Mariscal and Fernando Trueba (directors of Chico & Rita (2010)) that also seems to have forgotten to include one of the most essential elements of any filmed or written story – the so-called “interest hook”.

The film starts with us seeing journalist Jeff Harris (Jeff Goldblum) giving a press conference regarding his new book about pianist Tenório Júnior and his disappearance in 1976, and then proceeds to show the said journalist in the past as he flies to Brazil to start his investigation into this mystery and the character of Tenório Júnior.  He interviews many people who had connection with the pianist, and the major problem here is that the film completely bypasses to first telling us what is really at stake here and why we should care so much and be so interested in the disappeared man and his seemingly horrifying demise. It is all very curious at the first glance, but the documentary does not even attempt to introduce any surprising or intriguing elements as it proceeds in a rather confused and overly unimaginative manner. Even the colourful, impressively detailed animation plates distract us from, rather than pull us into, the story.

It does sound heartless and horrifying, but disappearance of a person, be they well-known pianists or not, was not such an uncommon or shocking turn of events in the 1976′ Buenos Aires by any means given that the country was under the civil-military dictatorship at the time and Special Forces were actively persecuting people. The animated story loses many opportunities to arouse in us a special interest in the story. Harris meets the members of Francisco Tenório Júnior’s family, and again and again speculates as to what might have happened to him, restating again and again what a great talent he was. He was, and the twenty-minute film would have paid just as elegant and touching of a tribute to the great pianist (instead of this almost two hour-long confusion). The final fifteen minutes of the film do make certain intense revelations, but isn’t this what we all knew or suspected all along even without watching this film?

Though They Shot the Piano Player fares averagely as an investigative story, it still has its memorable bursts of energy, especially in the scenes that focus on the idiosyncrasies of the Brazilian music and people’s passion for it. As in Chico & Rita, the colour and the animatory vision centre on musicians and on the joy of music creation in some scenes, and the wonderful music inspires and makes it hard to look away. In that way, They Shot the Piano Player may just about delight the devoted fans of Chico & Rita, but those who look for documentary insight and nuanced revelations may just as well look elsewhere.

They Shot the Piano Player is in selected cinemas and then nationwide (US) from 23 February from Sony Pictures Classics.