Stars: Eman Xor Ona, Limara Meneses, Mario Guerra, Lenny Mandel
Director: Tono Errando, Javier Mariscal, and Fernando Trueba
Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Animated Feature)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars
The Best Animated Feature race at the Oscars, only a decade old, has done a surprisingly great job of balancing foreign films and the big blockbusters that spring up like clockwork every year at the Box Office. I will admit that I was initially skeptical of the category, and it's still not one I fully embrace (the limited pool of contenders means that a studio like Pixar is nearly guaranteed to return every single year, though 2011 proved that isn't 100% the case), but I am glad that it introduces me to movies like Chico & Rita, a film that I would never have seen with its clear romance of eternal cities and strong use of stunningly beautiful jazz music, even if it falls trap to a number of cliches and convenient plot twists.(Spoilers throughout) The film tells the tale, of course, of Chico and Rita. We are shown the bulk of the film through Chico's flashbacks, his recollections of how he, an excellent piano player, first met Rita, a rising night club singer. Chico and Rita, as is true of most movies, rather instantly fall in intrigue, though not quite in love, as Rita resists the determined man as he and his friend Ramon follow her around Havana in the late 1940's, until finally his persistence pays off and he takes Rita home (yes, there is a bit of animated nudity in the film, but it's brief and hardly worth mentioning except that the film is unrated, and if you're seeing it, you should probably be an adult). Chico's actual girlfriend shows up after their impetuous love-making, but not before Chico dedicates a song (and the film's recurring theme) to his beautiful one-night stand.
Eventually, Rita gives Chico a second-chance, and they become a hot night club fixture, until Rita is discovered by an American agent of sorts who is clearly enamored with her beauty, and eventually, after another of Chico's affairs, Rita leaves for New York and becomes a star. The film has quite a bit of social commentary about Rita's rise to stardom, particularly pointing out that she was a huge star in the sense that everyone knew her name, but she was still very much discriminated against, not being able to stay in the hotels that she would perform in-it's very clear that the stories of women like Lena Horne, Dorothy Dandridge, and Ruby Dee are on display in this film. As Rita's star climbs (to Broadway, then to Hollywood), she still finds herself gravitating toward Chico, who keeps ebbing and flowing back into her life. Finally, Chico's friend Ramon, driven by greed, plants cocaine on Chico and forces him to be deported back to Cuba, and Rita, heartbroken, becomes drunk and decries racism in front of an all-white audience, effectively ending her career.
The film borrows quite a bit from the noir films of the 1940's, and there's clearly homage to Casablanca here (most obviously in a rather amusing dream sequence with Chico playing Sam and Rita playing Ilsa), but the film doesn't have the courage to use Casablanca's bittersweet ending, instead having Chico, an old man at this point, rediscovered by a young and popular singer, who records the film's theme and they win accolades and a Grammy, and in the film's final scene, Chico, after years of searching, makes it to Las Vegas and reunites with Rita. It's a bit hackneyed for a film ending, I have to say-I'm not averse to happy endings, but for a film that's clearly designed for adult audiences, giving a happy ending that ties everything up in a nice, neat bow seems a bit out of character.
The film's best elements, in my mind, are both the music and its clear romance with large, iconic cities. The music rings so thoughtfully throughout the film, and as an English-speaker, I have to say I found it much more moving when the film confidently dropped the subtitles on the songs, and simply let the music itself tell the story. Additionally, while the animation was a bit rudimentary for my tastes, the directors clear fascination with iconic cities like Havana, New York, Paris, and Las Vegas kept me agog regularly. New York, the city of the four I'm most familiar with, felt brought to life with the way that the film doesn't just focus on the highlights of the Statue of Liberty and Empire State Building, but also shows us Harlem and sites above 59th Street.
These two elements, though, are not enough to overcome the clear cliches on display throughout the film-while the movie works, the fact that you feel like you know the entire plot about ten minutes into the flick makes the film seem considerably longer than its 94 minutes. All-in-all, a trip I'm glad I took, even if it wasn't one that I would seek out again.
And now, we come to the beginning of the end of 2011 Oscar Viewing Project-I have officially completed all of the narrative, feature-length film nominees. For those of you who are not well-versed in Academy-ese, that essentially means every category except the Short Films and the Documentaries, which were cut for practical concerns (logistically speaking, finding most of those films to view would be impossible), as well as because those films don't age very well, in my humbled opinion (films like The Sorrow and the Pity clearly prove that thought bubble wrong, but I digress). Throughout the weekend (and possibly into next week), I shall be revealing my individual thoughts on each category, whom I was surprised made the cut, and my official, complete ballot for who most deserved those Oscar statues. Stay tuned!!!
But before we go, let's not forget about the film in question-did you like Chico & Rita? Was it a breath of fresh air, or did you too fall out-of-love with some of the cliches on display? And where does it rank amongst your personal favorite animated films of 2011?
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