A day after your individual movie competition has concluded, most likely the very last thing it is best to do to your physique is drag it to any person else’s. However lower than 24 hours after surviving Indy Movie Library’s 2024 showcase in Amsterdam, a really variety invite from the organisers meant that I discovered myself on the well-known Melkweg for In-Edit NL – a world musical documentary competition – and a screening of They Shot the Piano Participant.

The very fact I used to be very visibly working on empty (even in the course of the IFL occasion one pleasant so-and-so took the time to inform me I “look drained”) as I grumpily shuffled into the theatre may need been a trigger for concern for another occasion. A critic with a sore head is mostly one thing to keep away from. However there was nothing to fret about right here – as a result of virtually instantly my aches and pains melted away, as In-Edit performed their trump-card: multi-instrumentalist Elizabeth Fadel.

Earlier than the screening bought underway, she was deployed to carry out a shocking assortment of bossa nova songs. It was a improbable preamble to the film; not simply because it launched most of the viewers members to the music they might be listening to, however as a result of it gave us a dwelling, respiration instance of what it means on a human degree. Nonetheless swept up in songs she should have carried out lots of of instances earlier than Fadel has an infectious power on stage; and regardless that she is simply instantly taking part in her piano, cavaquinho, or accordion together with her arms, each different a part of her physique appears to be engaged with the efficiency.

It was not lengthy earlier than the entire viewers was rocking, carried away in that very same feeling – basking within the easy, flowing tunes and delicate melodies of every track. In these few moments, all of us had a tiny style of what it’s about bossa nova that captured the creativeness of hundreds of thousands of individuals throughout Brazil, South America and in addition the USA. It was a lovely feeling of calm, hope and unity. And in that on the spot, we had been additionally given a glimpse into simply why an innocuous musician inside the bossa nova motion may need been seen as such a terrifying risk to the army juntas of South America within the Seventies.

Stepping into the movie itself, They Shot the Piano Participant is an animated documentary, which items collectively the ultimate hours of Tenório Jr – a Brazilian jazz-pianist who was disappeared by hostile political forces in 1976. Whereas the precise particulars of Tenório’s vanishing stay unclear, very early within the movie, it appears fairly clear that it was an act of political violence – Tenório having been kidnapped following a efficiency in Bueno Aires, shortly after a army junta had seized energy. The principle thriller for the gamers right here, is why him. In virtually each interview, Tenório is remembered as somebody who was joyful, carefree, and never politically energetic. However after all, tub-thumping speeches, strikes and demonstrations should not the one means somebody may threaten a right-wing political challenge.

Artwork has the potential to deliver folks collectively, and thru its interpretations of the human situation, it might probably current them with a venue for neighborhood and solidarity – even when different overt methods of organising are being stamped out. There’s a cause that the humanities are all the time early targets for reactionary political initiatives – from Operation Condor, to the austerity drives of 21^st century Europe – and because the movie progresses, evidently that is additionally the explanation why Tenório grew to become a goal for the dictatorships of Argentina and Brazil.

The movie’s real interviews with Tenório’s surviving pals, household and fellow musicians are rotoscoped to mix with a sequence of depictions of the person himself – imagining how he may need lived his final day – and whereas which may set some folks on edge as documentary is historically a really literal medium, I feel it justifies itself. First – as can also be proven by the work of cartoonist and warfare correspondent Joe Sacco – I feel presenting what’s in the end some very heavy data to mainstream audiences this manner helps make it extra accessible; in a means that’s extra essential than the inflexible upkeep of ‘realism’ at any prices. Each information report or documentary offered to us has been re-structured and engineered by artists anyway, so why not lean into it?

However even past that, this methodology feels more true to the music and cultural second it’s talking about. The colourful, stylised imagery that the animators leverage within the telling of this story brings the story to life in a means that the pallid crime scene recreations of true-crime tv won’t ever handle – bringing with them a feeling for the historic and cultural context the story is going down in. Every little thing is alive with that very same power current in Fadel’s earlier efficiency – brilliant pink figures sway and bounce their means via a thriving carnival in Rio; piano keys warp and wave as Tenório meanders his means via an excellent solo – earlier than giving approach to the sterile, static corridors of a former army detention centre. The color virtually drains away, talking of the joyless world they ushered in.

One space that does grate barely is that these segments are framed with a story arc following a fictional music journalists performed by Jeff Goldblum. I very a lot get pleasure from Goldblum’s performances, however it’s arduous to reconcile his standard mumbling quips with a movie with this specific challenge. The movie may need been higher off with administrators Fernando Trueba or Javier Mariscal presenting their precise components as protagonists of their story – in the way in which Ari Folman does in Waltz with Bashir. As a substitute, Goldblum’s extraordinarily recognisable voice verges on turning into a distraction at sure moments. In his and the movie’s defence although, he’s additionally a famend jazz-enthusiast (and a musician in his personal proper), so he has a real cause to wish to assist inform this story – and getting a ‘identify’ like his connected will hopefully assist to try this. And on this extraordinarily precarious social and political second, it’s a story which must be instructed.

They Shot the Piano Participant explains why authoritarian political actors are so fearful of music, movies, poetry. As famous at Indy Movie Library’s personal closing occasion, artwork creates an area the place we will nonetheless come collectively, and face our anxieties as one. And understanding that’s essential to defending that house, and ourselves within the years to come back. In its personal means, In-Edit can also be a part of that: championing music and movie that may assist remind us of what we’re up towards; whereas offering that effervescent power that may assist us dare to dream of a greater world. In case you’re in Amsterdam this week, do your self a favour, and get swept up in that power for your self.