How much I actually came to learn about Francisco Tenório Júnior? That was a lingering question left in my mind after I watched animated docudrama film “They Shot the Piano Player”, which was mainly about the real-life disappearance and presumed murder of that rather obscure and but undeniably talented Brazilian pianist in 1976. Yes, his disappearance was really tragic for many reasons, but he remains to be a frustratingly elusive human figure even at the end of the film, and that was a little disappointing for me even though I admire its considerable technical efforts.

The narrative of the film is driven by a fictional New York City journalist named Jeff Harris (voiced by Jeff Goldblum), who comes to embark on writing a book about the Bossa nova music of Brazil around the early 1960s after his article on that subject came to draw lots of attention around the world. As a part of his material research process, he plans to spend several days in Brazil, and a close local friend of his is certainly willing to help him right from the beginning.

As doing more research into Bossa nova, which is a relaxed mix of American Jazz and Samba music, Harris comes to learn more about how influential Bossa nova was when it was developed in the late 1950s by a group of very young talented musicians such as João Gilberto and Paulo Moura. Just like when those young French filmmakers of the French New Wave concocted something quite revolutionary around that period, Gilberto and his fellow musicians happened to create their own innovate stuffs to be spread around the world, and it is interesting to note that both Bossa nova and the French New wave were highly creative responses to the considerable influence from some of the best parts of the American culture during that time.

While Harris interviews a number of living legends of Bossa nova in Brazil (Their real interview recordings are incorporated into the film, by the way), one certain figure keeps appearing, and that figure in question is none other than Francisco Tenório Júnior. All of the interviewees who personally knew him during that time talk a lot about what a talented genius this young pianist/composer was, and the film naturally gets more interested in delving into his exceptional but tragically short career along with Harris.

Although there are only a few recordings to show the talent of this ill-fated artist, they are fairy enough for us to feel and understand his considerable artistic talent, which could have influenced Bossa nova more if it had not been for his sudden disappearance. In March 1976, Tenório was doing a tour along with his several colleagues including Vinicius de Moraes in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and everything seemed fine for them as they enjoyed another satisfying moment for their careers, but then he was suddenly vanished not long after he went outside his staying place during one early morning.

This mysterious incident was certainly devastating to many people around him. While many of his colleagues were quite baffled, his wife and children as well as his mistress were more devastated as it became more evident that Tenório was another victim of many South American dictatorship governments during that period. As an expert explained to Harris later in the film, those dictators of a number of Central and South American countries gathered together for their joint covert operation to oppress millions of citizens during that period, and, not so surprisingly, the US government and CIA secretly supported this atrocious operation for securing their national interest on Central and South America as a part of the Cold War strategy.

Because what really happened to Tenório right before his presumed death remains an unsolved mystery even at this point, the film understandably comes to keep circling around that maddening question as a bunch of various testimonies associated with his disappearance and presume death keep popping out here and there. For example, we never get to know the exact reason for why he was targeted from the very beginning, and we can only guess that he was just casually labeled as a “subversive” just like millions of innocent victims during that terrible period. In addition, there are also several different versions of how he got vanished on that fateful day, and you will not be that sure about whether he went outside for buying a sandwich for him or getting a medicine for his mistress who happened to accompany him during that tour of his.

Moreover, the film is so occupied with the mystery surrounding Tenório’s disappearance that it often seems to overlook presenting Tenório as a human being to know and understand. Although it looks a bit into his early years later, Tenório still feels distant to us even at that point, and we are only reminded again and again of how wonderful he was as an artistic and a man despite his rather complicated private life. Furthermore, its fictional interviewer hero is quite colorless despite Goldblum’s good voice performance, and you may wonder whether the film could be more effective if it just directly approached to its narrative materials instead of using a redundant narrator figure as its narrative framing device.

In conclusion, “They Shot the Piano Player”, whose title is clearly derived from François Truffaut’s “Shoot the Piano Player” (1960), is not entirely satisfying, but it is technically impressive thanks to its vibrant and colorful juxtaposition of music and animation. Compared to directors Fernando Trueba and Javier Mariscal’s previous Oscar-nominated film “Chico and Rita” (2010), this is relatively less recommendable in my humble opinion, but it is not a total waste of time at least, and you may be interested in checking it out if you are not so familiar with its main subject.