Chico and Rita

Thursday 6th January 2011
Upstairs at the Prince Charles Cinema

 

Chico and Rita is a love story in the simplest of terms that touches on the social and political changes surrounding the lives of Jazz musician Chico (voiced by Emar Xor Ona) and singer Rita (voiced by Limara Meneses). The film charts the meeting of the two lovers through a series of flashbacks taking them from pre-revolution Cuba through post-war 1940's New York  and right up to the modern day. The animation has come in for high critical praise and there is no doubt it's both unique or intriguing to watch. Although as much as it captures the warm soulful feel of the Jazz music the protagonist dance, party and make love to, it fails to maintain the emotion and depth of that displayed in say, Sylvain Chomet's The Illusionist. In particular the characters faces, often shown in stark ever-growing close ups, hold a strange stiffness at times making empathy towards them a challenging emotion.

The film does, of course touch upon many social changes and movements of the time, with the civil rights movement and the Cuban revolution being the most notable of these. Whilst seeing these portrayed through animation is undoubtably intriguing viewing, the film falls short in many occasions in it's attempt to merge the authenticity of the love story with the social and political background it's played out against. This raises an important problem one that Lisa Mullen outlines perfectly in her review for Sight and Sound, 

'for all it's mesmerisingly detailed evocation of a particular time and place, the film remains resolutely in the realm of the non-real, eliding or editing out any detail that doesn't conform to the vision of its makers and contribute to the story they are telling.'1

Thus although the film is clearly set within the world of the non-real, the depiction of real-life events in an seemingly inaccurate manner is an unavoidable problem the creators face. Thus when Chico and Rita return to Havana as the Cuban revolution is in full swing, our attention is drawn to the clean untouched streets and the smiling clean faced army troops wave to the public as they drive past. The purity of these sequence smacks of idealistic imagery and lacks the cultural authenticity this animation cries out for. Another case in point is the handling of the civil right movement. Whilst the prominence of whites-only night spots is clearly an accurate portrayal of the discrimination of the times, the absence of any significant non prejudiced white characters is problematic. Discounting the female tourists of Havana whose lack of racial prejudice is placed firmly alongside their sexual promiscuity, the manner in which this issue is tackled is strangely one dimensional and simplistic.

This is not to take away from the enjoyment of the film however. With a brilliantly chosen soundtrack and a intriguing range of emotive dialogue and perhaps the greatest cartoon love scene of all time, it deserves a worthy mention within the ever growing repertoire of adult animation films. The dream sequence, in which Chico meets Humphrey Bogart's Rick Blaine who quickly morphs in a gun wielding Phillip Marlowe, is so full of energy, colour, inventiveness and creativity that one wonders why the whole film couldn't have been so refreshing.

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1 Lisa Mullen, Sight and Sound, December 2010, p. 57
IMDB / Find Any Film / Rotten Tomatoes / Trailer