Avis des critiques

“Chico & Rita” is a buttery rich animated tale of love, jazz, showbiz, fame and politics in the late ‘40s and early ‘50s that is as catchy as its tunes... [The film's] story of young lovers whose passions are tested is timeless.

Excepting a lively and abstract interlude of a neon-shock dreamscape, the animation is uninspiring, corny, even... The very best animation can excite the senses and inflame the imagination. But Chico & Rita's charmless line drawings just made me wish the film was live-action instead.

The rudimentary 2-D animation doesn’t allow for much character nuance, and the story isn’t exactly fresh. But directors Fernando Trueba (Calle 54), Javier Mariscal, and Tono Errando conjure up some vibrant set pieces.

The music is terrific. Idania Valdes dubs Rita's sensuous, smoky singing voice, and the film is essentially constructed as a musical. There came a point when the sweep of the romantic story caught me up as much as a narrative film might have, and I wasn't distanced by the animation.

By virtue of its simple, stylized look - bold lines and color blocks - and effervescent Cuban jazz score, the Spanish animated feature "Chico & Rita" rises above its routine story of a troubled love affair between talented musicians.

A dazzling and delightful work of modernist animation, a classic movie romance and a hip-swinging, finger-popping tale of musical revolution, "Chico & Rita" is the first big serendipitous surprise of 2012.

Sexy, sweet and laced with a sadness at once specific to its place and time and accessible to anyone with a breakable heart, “Chico & Rita” is an animated valentine to Cuba and its music.

The picture's real achievement though, is the warmth it brings to the music... [Chico & Rita] is so passionate about the Latin and big-band music of the '40s, '50s and '60s that it'll make anyone who grew up listening to those vibrant rhythms feel like a kid again.

[Chico & Rita is] texturally gorgeous. The liquid-smooth animation seems rotoscoped in places... The characters are simply rendered, but when it comes to capturing cities and scenes, the cinematography takes on the color and detail of a Mexican street mural... It’s a heady wonder for fans of the music, the era, or visual creative art in general.

There’s so much depth and warmth in both the story and in the drawing: This is animation that implies movement instead of merely showing it. It also keeps the spirit of this one particular branch of the jazz canon burning in its heart. Chico & Rita may, in its deceptive simplicity, be the wave of the future.

[Chico & Rita is] a dazzling thing to behold... Occasionally, the love story gets lost in all the shuffling, and the character of Rita feels conspicuously drawn in. But when it returns to the music, which it does often, Chico & Rita cannot fail to move.

You’ve never seen anything like “Chico & Rita,” simply because that jubilant palette and likeminded jazz soundtrack embraces its predictability with such vitality. The lush animated environment sustains each standard twist, resulting in the rare case of a movie that yearns for a time when a swooning period piece felt fresh.