This an animation film about the life and tragic death of Francisco Tenório, a jazz piano player. The story is narrated exclusively through the recorded accounts of people who met him, and it's framed through the journey of discovery that a writer takes to write a book about him.
The reconstruction of the interviews that constitute the bulk of the film is painstaking and extensive. Most are slightly unfocused, fogged by the passing of time, and can be resumed with "he was a great guy". It's only well into the second act that we start to get crumbs of information about his cruel demise, and eventually the mystery is solved. Ample context is given, and it sheds light over a very dark time of the history of Latin America. You leave the cinema feeling that Francisco remains a ghost, that his short life in perilous times left precious little trace beside his records, but perhaps it's intentional, and it's laudable that the director resists the temptation of creating an overarching narrative for dramatic effect.
Side notes: I found the "reduced animation" technique exceedingly distracting, and I couldn't quite decide if it was a stylistic choice, or a budgeting strategy. Jeff Goldblum is pitch-perfect in the part of the narrator, although little is made of the cultural difference between his character, a textbook New Yorker journalist, and his subjects, mostly old men from Brazil and Argentina.
Overall, a slightly uneven movie that remains interesting, and tells a worthwhile story. And, ah, Jeff Goldblum.
The reconstruction of the interviews that constitute the bulk of the film is painstaking and extensive. Most are slightly unfocused, fogged by the passing of time, and can be resumed with "he was a great guy". It's only well into the second act that we start to get crumbs of information about his cruel demise, and eventually the mystery is solved. Ample context is given, and it sheds light over a very dark time of the history of Latin America. You leave the cinema feeling that Francisco remains a ghost, that his short life in perilous times left precious little trace beside his records, but perhaps it's intentional, and it's laudable that the director resists the temptation of creating an overarching narrative for dramatic effect.
Side notes: I found the "reduced animation" technique exceedingly distracting, and I couldn't quite decide if it was a stylistic choice, or a budgeting strategy. Jeff Goldblum is pitch-perfect in the part of the narrator, although little is made of the cultural difference between his character, a textbook New Yorker journalist, and his subjects, mostly old men from Brazil and Argentina.
Overall, a slightly uneven movie that remains interesting, and tells a worthwhile story. And, ah, Jeff Goldblum.