Fernando Trueba and Javier Mariscal's Chico Rita--a rhapsody of love and heartache spanning Havana and New York in the 1940s and ‘50s--is also a musical tour beneath the lights and loudspeakers of two culturally tied but politically divided cities. Chico, an aging bootblack and former pianist in modern Havana, revisits the memory of his on-off inamorata, the impossibly sexy singer Rita. Their music, which once filled pre-revolutionary dancehalls, blossoms into love--but when a slick impresario lays New York at Rita's feet, their romance turns into a lovelorn odyssey across the continent. Oscar-nominated for Best Animated Feature in 2012, Rico Chita pours a lifetime of connoisseurship into its incidental detail: animator Javier Mariscal has rebuilt 1950s New York, from the steaming drains up, as an outsider’s impression of the city--satin skyscrapers towering above the light-studded glamour and tropical bustle of Midtown Manhattan. The entirely diegetic score--classics from Thelonious Monk and Dizzie Gillespie, as well as new work from legendary composer Bebo Valdés--conjures up a belle époque of Americana: a time when American music, movies and cars were--or must have seemed to arriving Cubans--in their moment. Eventually, Chico makes it to New York, bought in by the tide of Latin influences lapping at the East coast, and pursues his career and his girl through the city’s seedy nightclubs and glitzy dance halls. But where American and Cuban styles seem to mix with an airy affinity, their politics sag heavily behind--and Chico and Rita’s careers founder on racial boundaries abroad and revolutionary upheaval back home. A happy ending looks cruelly unlikely, but don’t give up--a remarkable late-career comeback might just be on the cards. --Leo Batchelor