| Chico and Rita | |
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Theatrical release poster |
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| Directed by | Fernando Trueba Javier Mariscal |
| Produced by | Santi Errando Cristina Huete Michael Rose Martin Pope |
| Starring | Lenny Mandel Limara Meneses |
| Music by | Bebo Valdés |
| Studio | Isle of Man Film Magic Light Pictures |
| Distributed by | Disney (Spain); CinemaNX |
| Release date(s) | 19 November 2010 (United Kingdom) 25 February 2011 (Spain) |
| Running time | 94 minutes |
| Country | Spain United Kingdom |
| Language | Spanish English |
| Budget | €10 million[1] |
Chico and Rita is an animated feature-length film directed by Fernando Trueba and Javier Mariscal. The story of Chico and Rita is set against backdrops of Havana, New York City, Las Vegas, Hollywood and Paris in the late 1940s and early 1950s.
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A gifted songwriter and beautiful singer chase their dreams – and each other – from Havana to New York and Las Vegas. Chico is a young piano player with big dreams. Rita is a beautiful singer with an extraordinary voice. Music and romantic desire unite them, but their journey – in the tradition of the Latin ballad, the bolero – brings heartache and torment.
Director Fernando Trueba met designer and artist Javier Mariscal ten years ago when he asked him to create a poster for his Latin jazz documentary Calle 54.[2] So began a collaboration that saw Mariscal design all the artwork for Trueba's Calle 54 Records, make animated pop promos for the label, and together create a jazz-music restaurant in Madrid. The idea to make an animated feature film emerged out of one of those pop promos, La Negra Tomasa by Cuban musician Compay Segundo.
Mariscal's younger brother Tono Errando, with a background in music, film and animation, leads the audio-visual side of the multi-disciplinary creative company, and was chosen to collaborate with Trueba and Mariscal.
From the beginning, all three men were excited by the idea of making a film set against the Havana music scene in the late-40s and 50s. "That age is beautiful in design and architecture, so visually it belongs very much to Mariscal's world," says Errando.
"And in music it's a moment that's fantastic: it's the moment where Cuban musicians go to New York and join the Anglo Saxon jazz musicians. This fusion changed the music at that time."
Before drawing the locations in Cuba, Mariscal completed an intense research trip. Although, the economic stagnation of the Castro regime has spared Havana the ravages of rapid development in the past five decades, many of the buildings from that era have suffered from decay. But the film-makers came across a treasure trove when they discovered that the city government of the time had assembled an archive of photographs to help with street repairs. They found pictures of every street corner in Havana from 1949, and despite their efforts to ignore the injustices of that period, still manage to convey the look and mood of the era.
The team also found pictures taken inside the planes ferrying Americans to the party island. Mariscal explained that the planes arriving from New York, Washington, D.C. and Miami during that period were filled with Cuban musicians entertaining the passengers. They provided lots of information about the Cubans of that era, the clothes, the faces, the streets, billboards, cars, bars, the way they lived, the incredible life of Havana.
The film has been shown at the following festivals and released in the UK and Spain.
The film appeared at the following film festivals:
Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures distributed the film in 100 Spanish theaters on February 25, 2010.[1]
The film had a special screening at the Barbican Centre on 25 September[9] It opened across UK cinemas on 19 November 2010.
Chico & Rita was broadly praised by critics upon release, gaining a score of 94% on Rotten Tomatoes.[13] At both the 25th Goya Awards and the 24th European Film Awards, the film won the award in the category for Best Animated Film.[14][15]
The BBC's Mark Kermode listed the film fifth in his top five films of 2010.[16]
Philip French called the film "the year's best musical and one of the year's finest animated films" and an "utterly delightful, ... affecting, funny, historically accurate and at times pleasingly erotic story."[17]
Sounds and Colors called the film "a crowning achievement; a mixture of great animation, music and history with a narrative that reads like the simple story of heartbreak that bestows the greatest of love songs"[18]
In March 2011, The Miami Herald said "the film melds dazzling visuals and a wildly infectious score into a simple yet affecting love story" and while the "first 30 minutes of Chico & Rita achieve a giddy high the rest of the movie can never match", "Chico & Rita makes you fall hard for music, as hard as the protagonists fall for each other, and the movie is decent enough to give its lovebirds the tender finale they deserve."[11]
Fotogramas, the oldest and most prestigious film magazine in Spain, gave the film 4 out of 5 stars and praised how its characters were "more human and alive than many real actors".[19]
Variety negatively reviewed the film, calling it "a test, one that gauges whether your love of Cuban jazz can exceed your threshold for lousy animation...[in] an unflattering style, like a children's coloring book with its rudimentary line drawings and stiff, expressionless characters"; the film was "evocative enough of late-'40s Havana, and the sweaty, sensual music of the time."[3]
Chico and Rita received a nomination for Best Animated Feature at the 39th Annual Annie Awards.[20] This movie is also in race of 84th oscars along with Rio, Kung Fu Panda 2, Cars 2. (REF)
The film has an original soundtrack by Cuban pianist, bandleader and composer Bebo Valdés. It features music by Thelonious Monk, Cole Porter, Dizzy Gillespie and Freddy Cole.
According to Tono Errando, "it was the moment when new musicians came along like Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie with a new kind of music, that is not for dancing, full of notes, played really fast, a music that now we call jazz. Then the Cuban musicians arrived. Dizzy Gillespie has said many times in interviews, there was a moment for him that was very important, it was the moment he first played with Chano Pozo. Pozo was the first percussionist that played in a jazz band."[21]
Cuban pianist, bandleader, composer and arranger of the film Bebo Valdés was living in obscurity in Stockholm, when Trueba reintroduced his playing to an international audience with his film Calle 54, and went on to produce the Grammy-winning Lagrimas Negras album, teaming Valdes with flamenco singer Diego "El Cigala".
Trueba was also able to persuade the real-life flamenco star Estrella Morente, who has been performing since the age of seven, to participate in the film.
Musicians featured in the film include Chucho Valdés, Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Chano Pozo, Tito Puente, Ben Webster, and Thelonious Monk.
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