I've loved Pixar movies for years. Toy Story. Finding Nemo. Monsters, Inc. Ratatouille. Brave. WALL·E. And especially The Incredibles.
Up there with all of these, and better than most of them, is the latest from the studio: Coco, a celebration of Día de Muertos that was worth viewing with my best friend for all the reasons. Not only because she's Mexican and can attest to the movie's cultural accuracy, but because it's perfectly tailor-made for us. A little dark, and with feels-bombs worthy of competing with the likes of Amazing Spider-Man and Big Hero 6, and so very absolutely life-affirming and heartwarming because you can't help but love the heroes of this story.
 |
| Has Pixar ever gifted us such a beautiful and lavish movie? Signs point to no...until now! |
As my bestie can tell you, main character Miguel has a very typical Mexican family - so many people, parents and grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins all over the place, fiercely devoted to tradition. A lovely entity to be part of - unless you're an artist and your family doesn't respect you. I can tell you myself that it ain't just a Mexican thing. Maybe a Catholic thing? Whatever the case may be, it's such a universal theme that it helps make the movie super-duper-relatable.
And then there's the more uniquely Mexican aspects of this movie - though, as with my viewing of The Book of Life three years ago, I came out of Coco wondering why the hell Día de Muertos isn't celebrated more around the world. Recently, I saw some tweet somewhere - can't remember where - wherein it called out Western culture for being all about forgetting and erasing, while Indigenous culture was more about remembering, especially across generations. Terrific point there, working in neatly with the note at the end of this movie's credits talking about the holiday's Indigenous roots and advising viewers, "For more information, visit your local library."
One of the biggest lessons this movie imparts is that even when you're dead - no, especially when you're dead - being forgotten is about the worst possible thing that can happen to you. Perhaps that theme, more than any other Coco offers, resonates the strongest of all, especially for those of us who, like me, feel alone and friendless more often than not. And nobody's better at offering that lesson than Hector, one of the many souls inhabiting the Land of the Dead, where Miguel winds up after accidentally cursing himself by picking up the wrong guitar. The Land of the Dead is so wonderfully animated, full of color and life even more than in the real world - and when our glimpse of the real world is in Mexico on Día de Muertos, laden with fully-loaded ofrendas and joyous music and marigold petals, that's saying something. Heck, the entrance to the Land of the Dead resembles a cross between Disneyland and a 19th century train station, with more than a hint of one of my favorite tropes, the Celestial Bureaucracy. That Bureaucracy proves quite the challenge for my other favorite character in this movie besides Miguel: Héctor, a pile of skeletal fun and games with whom anything goes, up to and including cross-dressing as Frida Kahlo. (Naturally, my friends and I headcanon that he does this all. the. time.) Speaking of Frida Kahlo, the real deal (at least in this world) appears as well, as a super-cool performer whose artistry, though incomprehensible, is memorable as all get-out.
I can't really get into detail about the movie without spoiling it, and I promised you I wouldn't. So I'm not going to write a super-long review on this one. All I will say is this: while the 20+ minute Frozen special that, sadly, preceded the movie on my viewing was largely a draining waste of time (other than a few great laughs from Olaf in the "Explain Christmas Badly" vein and Elsa, whose queer subtext and lovably icy nature I still relate to all too well, having an even prettier dress) and worthy only of a C-, Coco is an absolute A+ movie, one of the best animated films I've ever seen, loaded with surprises and laughs and feels and music and heart all over the place. It's now a virtual lock for this year's Pinecone Awards too, and in a crowded field of contenders from Marvel to DC to Star Wars, it's mowing down a lot of worthy competition.
Till next time, Pinecones...
 |
| #AlimentarAlLoboCorrecto |
 |
| Recuerda: Denis Leary siempre está mirando. Siempre. |
No comments:
Post a Comment