They Shot the Piano Player compares favourably to a number of Oscar-winning works! (Film review)

 

My life in Hong Kong: film festing, and way too ubiquitous 

police presence (See the police van on the 

other side of the road from the HKIFF advertising?) :S

They Shot the Piano Player (Spain-France-The Netherlands-Portugal-Peru-U.K., 2023)

- Fernando Treuba (who's also wrote the script) and Javier Mariscal, directors

- Voice actors: Jeff Goldblum, Tony Ramos, Abel Ayala, Roberta Wallach

- Part of the Hong Kong International Film Fetival's Animation Unlimited program 

 

The last animated movie I viewed prior to viewing this multinational offering was Hayao Miyazaki's The Boy and the Heron (Japan, 2023).  I realise it's unfair to compare these two very different cinematic offerings -- but if I did so, I'd say that I actually liked They Shot the Piano Player better, and am surprised that it didn't even get nominated for the Animated Feature Film Oscar that the Studio Ghibli production won this year.

 

Speaking of Oscar nominated animated works: Persepolis (France-U.S., 2007) is one of three works I got to thinking of when viewing They Shot the Piano Player; with the other two being the non-animated Academy Award winners Searching for Sugar Man (2012) and Missing (1982).  For like Vincent Paronnaud and Marjane Satrapi's work about a girl growing up in Islamic Revolution-era Iran, this offering from Fernando Teruba and Javier Mariscal is an animated docudrama -- in the latter case, about an American journalist trying to figure out what happened to a musical hero who appeared to have vanished into thin air, a la Searching the Sugar Man's Sixto Rodriguez, in a foreign, South American country similar to the fictional one that's the setting for Costa-Gavras' Missing.

 

It's 2010 and New York music journalist Jeff Harris (voiced by Jeff Goldblum) is planning on writing a book about the Brazilian bossa nova craze of the 1960s.  Early on in his research, he comes across a recording featuring the piano playing of Francisco Tenório Júnior and determines to learn more about this Brazilian musical talent.  

 

On research trips to Brazil, Jeff interviews illustrious Brazilian bossa nova musicians like Gilberto Gil, João Donato and Chico Buarque (voicing themselves in the movie) about their music, and memories of Tenório Júnior.  At some point, he changes the subject of his planned book to the piano player whose music, life and mysterious disappearance back in 1976 he has become well nigh obsessed with.  And eventually, he is able to piece together the tragic story of a much beloved musician and man who went missing while on tour in then dictator-ruled Argentina -- leaving behind a wife, children, mistress and many friends mourning his disappearance from their lives.

 

At one level, They Shot the Piano Player is a enthralling dramatic investigation into what happened to a piano player who look to have unwittingly got involved in South American politics, to his great detriment.  At another, it's a chilling indictment of totalitarian regimes and their state terrorism -- which, in South America, led, among other tragedies, to the "disappearance" tens of thousands of people, many, if not all, of them innocents.  At the same time, it's also a beautifully hand-drawn work that's a thoroughly affecting celebration of bossa nova, and the life of Tenório Júnior.

 

It is very much to its makers' credit that they attempted to do so much, and succeeded in doing so.  A feast for the eyes and ears, this work -- which also happens to be tri-lingual (English, Portuguese and Spanish) -- is also heart-breaking and heart-warming at different parts of its story -- which, it is worth emphasizing, is, at heart, non-fiction. (The fictional bit comes from the man who became obsessed with the story of Tenório Júnior -- so much so that he kept at it for some two decades! -- being not Jeff Harris but the film's co-director and scriptwriter, Fernando Trueba -- and instead of writing a book about the Brazilian musician, he made They Shot the Piano Player!)

My rating for this film: 9.0

Looking at (a video about) people who have chosen to stay in Hong Kong

 

Wishing readers of this blog "All the best" on 

the 15th day of Chinese New Year

 

I've spent the 15th day of Chinese New Year in a not particularly festive manner; including doing such as viewing a CNA documentary entitled Changed Lives in Hong Kong: Why Have They Chosen To Stay? Year of Ren Yin.  Produced by the same team that previously made a video entitled One Way Ticket Out: A Family's Journey, about Hong Kong’s great national security law-era exodus, this circa 45 minute video profiles four people who have chosen to stay rather than leave.  (Something worth noting: some 7.29 million people remain in Hong Kong.  The majority, rather than minority, in fact.)

 

I have a few quibbles with this CNA video, including: its description of the pro-democracy protests that began in 2019 having begun on June 12th, 2019, rather than an earlier date (say, late March; and talk of all Covid rules and regulations having been lifted as of December 2022.  Re the latter:  Actually, they have not all been lifted.  Even in February, I can say one word to disprove this: masks.  Also, it seems to imply that 2022, "the year of Ren Yin", has been Hong Kong's worst in a while.  But I feel like 2022 was just another terrible year after 2019, 2020 and 2021.  And I have little confidence that 2023 is going to be that much better. 

 

Still, the overall presentation is watchable, thoughtful and thought-provoking; and I must say that I do like the choice of quartet of people to focus on: two local born Hong Kongers; one Mainland Chinese transplant; and one Japanese expatriate.  This is not least because it offers up some diversity of experiences that is quite representative of that whose government likes to think of it as Asia's World City but actually is more of an East Asian city than anything else (including "just another Chinese city").

 

Ronson Chan is the chairperson of the city's largest journalist group, the Hong Kong Journalists Association (HKJA).  He formerly worked for Apple Daily and Stand News, both of which no longer exist.  Midway through the filming of this documentary, he gets arrested -- but he is released and is (even) allowed to leave Hong Kong for a time to take part in a program at Oxford University.  

 

But even though some people, including his wife(!), urge him to stay abroad permanently, he is adamant that he wants to return to Hong Kong -- to do such as bear witness to what's happening to his home city.  He says of Hong Kong: "It's like the girl's not into you anymore but you still long for the sight of her".  It's pretty obvious from what he says, and his actions too, that this is a man who really f**king loves Hong Kong.  He knows that "It's not rational", but it is what it is.      

 

Stanley Lai is a photographer turned taxi driver.  He's had friends leave but he seems unwilling to do so himself.  Even though times are rough, and he finds it difficult to make a living.  He's not specifically asked, so doesn't explicitly state his reasons for staying.  My sense from the video is that he's one of those Hong Kongers who would not be comfortable anywhere simply because Hong Kong has been his whole world all of his life.  And for all the talk of Hong Kong being an international city, the fact of the matter is that there are many more people like him here than folks who have spent time elsewhere as well as here.

 

In contrast, Japanese bartender-bar owner Masahiko Endo has spent more time outside of Hong Kong than in it.  And yet, he's elected to stay.  This even with/after his wife, a fellow bartender by profession who lived and worked in Hong Kong for a time with him, returned to Japan one and a half years ago.  "Hong Kong has given a lot," he told the interviewer (Wei Du), "It's given me a stage to show my true skills".  It's been a place for him where, "I don't need to hide" -- unlike as would be the case, for whatever reason, in his native Japan.

 

I personally know Japanese people who've spent years here in Hong Kong but never considered it home nor feel that they owe it anything.  Somehow, Endo-san seems to feel differently.  I'm not sure for how long more he'll stay in Hong Kong.  But having endured through the times where bars were closed and he couldn't work as a result of pandemic restrictions, it sounds like he'll stay for a time.

 

The segments involving Ronson Chan and Stanley Lai are primarily in Cantonese; the ones with Endo-san mainly in English (with a bit of Japanese when he speaks to his wife -- over the phone -- or Japanese friends in Hong Kong; one of whom I personally know has since returned to Japan).  In contrast, three languages -- Mandarin, Cantonese and English -- are used in the segment involving Suki Liu, a Mainland Chinese insurance agent who came to Hong Kong for graduate studies and has stayed (like a Mainland Chinese-born friend of mine).

Also, like my friend, Suki Liu speaks in Cantonese, not Mandarin, with her parents -- who still live in Mainland China (though she can be seen in the video trying to persuade them to move to Hong Kong).  And the sense one gets is that she actually loves being in Hong Kong more because Hong Kong offers her more professional opportunities but, also, to be herself.  A reminder that even as many people leave Hong Kong because they feel it has become less free, there are others for whom it is freer than their homelands.

On the subject of freedom and restrictions: it's worth noting that the principal interviewer in this documentary, Wei Du, is a Mainland China-born journalist who used to be based in Hong Kong but currently "travels in the region to cover major news events and produce feature stories."  She also happens to be the wife of Tim Owen, the British barrister who's been barred from representing Jimmy Lai -- and even barred for a time from entering Hong Kong.  So it's kind of ironic that she's involved in making a documentary about Hong Kongers in Hong Kong, eh?!