A day after your own film festival has concluded, probably the last thing you should do to your body is drag it to somebody else’s. But less than 24 hours after surviving Indy Film Library’s 2024 showcase in Amsterdam, a very kind invite from the organisers meant that I found myself at the famous Melkweg for In-Edit NL – an international musical documentary festival – and a screening of They Shot the Piano Player.
The fact I was very visibly running on empty (even during the IFL event one friendly so-and-so took the time to tell me I “look tired”) as I grumpily shuffled into the theatre might have been a cause for concern for any other event. A critic with a sore head is generally something to avoid. But there was nothing to worry about here – because almost immediately my aches and pains melted away, as In-Edit played their trump-card: multi-instrumentalist Elizabeth Fadel.
Before the screening got underway, she was deployed to perform a stunning collection of bossa nova songs. It was a fantastic preamble to the movie; not just because it introduced many of the audience members to the music they would be hearing, but because it gave us a living, breathing example of what it means on a human level. Still swept up in songs she must have performed hundreds of times before Fadel has an infectious energy on stage; and even though she is only directly playing her piano, cavaquinho, or accordion with her hands, every other part of her body seems to be engaged with the performance.
It was not long before the whole audience was rocking, carried away in that same feeling – basking in the smooth, flowing tunes and gentle melodies of each song. In those few moments, we all had a tiny taste of what it is about bossa nova that captured the imagination of millions of people across Brazil, South America and also the USA. It was a beautiful feeling of calm, hope and unity. And in that instant, we were also given a glimpse into just why an innocuous musician within the bossa nova movement might have been seen as such a terrifying threat to the military juntas of South America in the 1970s.
Getting into the film itself, They Shot the Piano Player is an animated documentary, which pieces together the final hours of Tenório Jr – a Brazilian jazz-pianist who was disappeared by hostile political forces in 1976. While the exact details of Tenório’s vanishing remain unclear, very early in the film, it seems pretty clear that it was an act of political violence – Tenório having been abducted following a performance in Bueno Aires, shortly after a military junta had seized power. The main mystery for the players here, is why him. In almost every interview, Tenório is remembered as someone who was happy, carefree, and not politically active. But of course, tub-thumping speeches, strikes and demonstrations are not the only way someone might threaten a right-wing political project.
Art has the potential to bring people together, and through its interpretations of the human condition, it can present them with a venue for community and solidarity – even when other overt ways of organising are being stamped out. There is a reason that the arts are always early targets for reactionary political projects – from Operation Condor, to the austerity drives of 21st century Europe – and as the film progresses, it seems that this is also the reason why Tenório became a target for the dictatorships of Argentina and Brazil.
The film’s genuine interviews with Tenório’s surviving friends, family and fellow musicians are rotoscoped to blend with a series of depictions of the man himself – imagining how he might have lived his last day – and while that might set some people on edge as documentary is traditionally a very literal medium, I think it justifies itself. First – as is also shown by the work of cartoonist and war correspondent Joe Sacco – I think presenting what is ultimately some very heavy information to mainstream audiences this way helps make it more accessible; in a way that is more important than the rigid maintenance of ‘realism’ at any costs. Every news report or documentary presented to us has been re-structured and engineered by artists anyway, so why not lean into it?
But even beyond that, this method feels truer to the music and cultural moment it is speaking about. The vibrant, stylised imagery that the animators leverage in the telling of this story brings the story to life in a way that the pallid crime scene recreations of true-crime television will never manage – bringing with them a feeling for the historical and cultural context the story is taking place in. Everything is alive with that same energy present in Fadel’s earlier performance – bright red figures sway and bounce their way through a thriving carnival in Rio; piano keys warp and wave as Tenório meanders his way through a glorious solo – before giving way to the sterile, static corridors of a former military detention centre. The colour almost drains away, speaking of the joyless world they ushered in.
One area that does grate slightly is that these segments are framed with a narrative arc following a fictional music journalists played by Jeff Goldblum. I very much enjoy Goldblum’s performances, but it is hard to reconcile his usual mumbling quips with a film with this particular project. The film might have been better off with directors Fernando Trueba or Javier Mariscal presenting their actual parts as protagonists in their story – in the way Ari Folman does in Waltz with Bashir. Instead, Goldblum’s extremely recognisable voice verges on becoming a distraction at certain moments. In his and the film’s defence though, he is also a renowned jazz-enthusiast (and a musician in his own right), so he has a genuine reason to want to help tell this story – and getting a ‘name’ like his attached will hopefully help to do that. And in this extremely precarious social and political moment, it is a story which needs to be told.
They Shot the Piano Player explains why authoritarian political actors are so scared of music, films, poetry. As noted at Indy Film Library’s own closing event, art creates a space where we can still come together, and face our anxieties as one. And understanding that is crucial to defending that space, and ourselves in the years to come. In its own way, In-Edit is also part of that: championing music and film that can help remind us of what we are up against; while providing that effervescent energy that can help us dare to dream of a better world. If you’re in Amsterdam this week, do yourself a favour, and get swept up in that energy for yourself.