We saw the first public screening of Chico & Rita at the Telluride Film
Festival in Telluride, CO. The film was introduced by by Oscar-winning
director Fernando Trueba to an enthusiastic, patron’s-only audience.

Chico and Rita is the story of Chico, a gifted pianist in Cuba in the
late 40s who is playing small clubs and hoping to enter a contest. He
and his agent spy the beautiful and talented Rita singing at a club and
so begins a pursuit that lasts 50 years from Cuba to New York to
Hollywood, Paris and Las Vegas.

The animation is stylish and fun to watch. Trueba made a significant
effort to be accurate to the period, going so far as visiting Cuba and
finding photographic records of every street that were taken in the
1950s to guide street repairs.

But the music is the guiding force of
the movie and includes work by Thelonious Monk, Dizzy Gillespie, and Nat
King Cole.

Dramatically, the arc of the story was somewhat predictable and, not to
be too harsh, but a bit Disney-like in the predictable estrangements by
circumstances of the heart, by geography, by the machinations of
villains, by careers, by tragic misunderstandings, by politics and
revolution.

It was fun to watch: enjoyable, touching, and aurally enchanting; but
neither challenging nor revelatory.