A couple of years ago a film came out that was literally a triple threat.  The film Flea was nominated in the Best Animated, Documentary, and International Feature Film categories at The Academy Awards in 2022. This was the first time this had ever happened with one film. It was well deserved because Flee was a very important movie that year. Well, this year there is another film that is attempting the same feat They Shot the Piano Player.

Tenorio  Jr is a piano player of some note in the Latin American community in several countries. He has collaborated with many Jazz/Blues musicians in his career. The problem is he started getting noticed as a political anarchist. Association With known members of a revolutionary group in communist Argentina. This wasn’t allowed to happen and one day he just disappeared without notice. That’s where Jeff Harris, voiced by Jeff Goldbloom, comes in. He inadvertently gets word of this musician and starts his own investigation into this man’s disappearance, despite his friends telling him to let it go.

The film has a framing device where Jeff is at a book signing and he starts to tell the story in the book to the audience there in attendance.  During that framing sequence and all through the rest of the documentary the film is completely animated from beginning to end, Because it’s a foreign film taking place in a South American country there are quite a few subtitles. This is the same combination of genres Flea was in. Even though They Shot the Piano Player is a completely different kind of documentary than that one was.

Without using Flea as the only comparison to this film, it’s hard to talk about the technical aspects and filmmaking styles of the directors Javier Mariscal and Fernando Trueba. They are doing something different with this film than the filmmaker of that film did. It was basically one man telling his arduous story and in this documentary, Jeff Harris is interviewing many people who played just a little part in this man’s life. That means quite a few talking heads. 

All of these various people are completely animated. The animation is a style I haven’t seen before which makes it quite unique to me. Two specific things about the animation I liked are how each of the people being interviewed all look distinctly different from one another. The other is the backgrounds of various cities, towns, and countryside are all beautifully recreated. This is a very detailed animation on a level I haven’t seen before. There was quite the attention to detail with everything in this film and story.

This movie is fascinating to me because it’s a story I wouldn’t have known about without watching this documentary. That’s what’s great about documentaries and film in general. They sometimes tell real stories we might not have heard about otherwise. This is one such film. This man featured in the film seemed to be well respected and a talented musician in his own right. His life ended before it really got started in some sense. It’s sad to think about.

They Shot the Piano Player is an awards contender in multiple categories come awards season. It features a story of a well-respected man who passed before his time. The style in which the filmmakers and writer chose to tell this story added to the quality of the film. Combining three great styles of film altogether hadn’t been done very often but in the case of Flea, it was done great. This story is a long one and meanders around this investigation which drags a little. It could have used more focus but the quality is still there in all phases of production of this film despite it being longer than necessary. This film is in the conversation for animated feature awards consideration though. The animation is incredibly detailed and nuanced. Every character looked completely different from the others. That’s true artistry. The detail is impeccable. It’s worth the price of admission. 

3 ½ stars