Chico & Rita

Not the most ground-breaking of plots - but it sure is pretty. The cityscapes in particular are beautiful and the music is well-represented. It's very atmospheric and although the ending feels quite old fashioned the narrative is woven into history with admirable authenticity.

Chico & Rita is a sublime and highly original animated film. It is a very adult film with some animated adult situations. Set in Cuba just before and the years after the revolution, it tells the story of Chico, a talented jazz pianist and Rita, a beautiful singer. Through the story of this couple's turbulent love affair over these years, where Rita finds fame and fortune in US and Chico goes through some hard times, we also get a brief history of both Cuba and jazz music. The animation is wonderfully evocative and colorful and as for the music; well if you are a fan of jazz or Latin American music you are going to fall in love with this movie. Highly recommended.

The second foreign nominee for the Academy Awards' Best Animated Feature in 2011, there has actually been buzz about this one since last year's Oscars (it debuted at Telluride in 2010 and also played at Toronto, but is not seeing a commercial release in the U.S. until February of 2012; it already saw a release in most European countries in late 2010 or 2011). That buzz is, thankfully, quite deserved, because this one is just wonderful. A simple story, sure, but a touching one about a young man and woman in Havana who begin a romance in 1948. They are musicians and get together through their art, but unfortunately petty jealousies keep getting in the way of their love. After initial success, Rita is swept off to New York City to become famous without Chico. He follows a few years later and finds his own fame, but the two seem destined to remain separate. The animation, like the story, is quite simple but really beautiful. It kind of reminds me of Waltz with Bashir, although it's not rotoscoped - at least not as extensively as Waltz with Bashir was. Rita, I must say, is the sexiest animated character since Jessica Rabbit - and she's not nearly so shy. It's kind of funny, but on account of this film, the Best Animated Feature category has far more nudity in it than all nine of the Best Picture nominees. Of course, as the characters are Cuban musicians, there's a ton of wonderful music throughout. I found the film deeply touching, and it brought me to tears at the end. This is far and away the best film among the four I've seen in its Oscar category this year (and I somehow doubt that Puss in Boots will eventually blow it out of the water!). Highly recommended.

The story of "Chico and Rita" is told with a big wink towards the "Buena Vista social club" and I must admit that the end is really moving. However two people who spend 60 years to come to the conclusion that they can't live without each other stretches the probability of the story a bit too much.

The animation however is very well done. Originally mainly used in films for kids, in the first decade of the new century animation was more and more used is films for grown ups. In this respect "Chico and Rita" was preceded by films like "Les triplettes de Belleville" (2003, Sylvian Chomet), "Persepolis" (2007, Marjane Satrapi) and "Waltz with Bashir" (2008, Ari Folman).

From the character of Gollum in "The lord of the rings" (2001 - 2003, Peter Jackson) I knew that at the basis of computer generated images (CGI) there is sometimes real human acting. In the case of Gollum a real actor played this character dressed in a suit full of sensors. Based on the measurements thus generated the computer made the images we see in the film. What I never knew was that "Chico and Rita" was made according to more or less the same procedure. Actors played the part of Chico and Rita, after which artists used these images to make the drawings. Purpose of this procedure was to make facial expressions as true to nature as possible.

As Brad Bird of Pixar fame has said, animation is not a genre, but an art form. Chico & Rita is an artfully made romantic drama that captures the hearts and imaginations of its audience through its storytelling as much as its animation. By turns reflective and reactive, this is a cosmopolitan saga of two lovers' struggle to find themselves and each other. The key notes of jealousy, passion and ambition set the story in a minor key, while the action moves with the syncopated beats of a mambo. The dialog is sharp and smart. Adults will appreciate the nuances of this excellent script. Love hurts, and the movie's main characters creatively express their bittersweet experiences with the virtuosity and greatness of the stars that they orbit and shine alongside. More of a character than a soundtrack, the music is evenly folded into the movie, as is the tension between the lovers. I wonder if people who go to see Chico & Rita only for the animation might possibly be disappointed, since it is less squash and stretch and more gouache and sketch. But the animation does convey the moods and emotions of the characters whilst taking us on a thrilling ride through dizzying cinematic vistas. The colours and lighting are somewhat stepped, but have an illustrative verisimilitude, that provides a convincing variety of bold panoramas and atmospheric interiors. Still, if you didn't like Waking Life or Belleville Rendezvous merely because of the flickering and the occasional detached 3D elements, then you may find watching this movie similarly distracting. I think that the story is compelling enough and the musical and visual elements such a treat that anyone willing to look beyond the animation is rewarded with the best that cinema can offer.