#Marcela Davison Aviles

[dweemeister]

Coco (2017)

In 2013, the Walt Disney Company moved to trademark “Día de Los Muertos” in anticipation of Pixar’s planned Day of the Dead film. Responding to the news, comic strip author Lalo Alcaraz (La Cucaracha) created a protest image of “Muerto Mouse”, warning of its intentions to, “trademark [Latino] cultura!”. Alcaraz, through La Cucaracha, has always been politically-minded through his comic strip and has been a vehement Disney critic since at least 1994, when he infamously dressed Mickey Mouse as “Migra Mouse” to protest the Walt Disney Company’s support of California Proposition 187 and the immigration policies of then-Governor Pete Wilson. So it came as a surprise to Alcaraz’s readers when he accepted a job as cultural consultant on Coco, directed by Lee Unkrich and Adrian Molina (also a co-writer). Alcaraz helped oversee an American film that justly honors Mexican culture while approaching questions about death in ways that cross borders, answered in different ways by people of different ages.

Looking at the reaction in Mexico, Pixar and Disney have avoided what could have been a mortifying cultural blunder. Unadjusted for inflation, Coco is a Mexican cultural phenomenon, being the highest-grossing film in that nation (adjusted for inflation, it is behind a handful of 2000s releases). With the exception of Russell from Up (2009), it is the first Pixar film in which the human protagonists are non-white. It is the first Pixar film to make note of and celebrate that specific cultural and national background. At worst, Coco is devalued by hackneyed storytelling decisions (this is a great Pixar movie, but not the best of what the studio has to offer) and its frantic climax. At its best, this an affecting tearjerker always in command of its characters’ sorrow and strength in family.

Born to a family of shoemakers, all twelve-year old Miguel wants to do is be a musician like his movie hero, Ernesto de la Cruz (a composite of Mexican singer-actors Pedro Infante and Jorge Negrete; both dominated the Golden Age of Mexican Cinema and make a joint cameo in Coco... Miguel also believes, for reasons best seen than described, that de la Cruz is his great-great grandfather). Miguel lives with his extended family, including his parents, cousins, grandmother Elena, and great-grandmother Coco (for whom this film is named). Día de Los Muertos – the day when the dead return to the Earth – is approaching. To describe how Miguel enters the Land of the Dead is too convoluted, lest this paragraph should run far too long. Upon entry with a stray Xolo dog named Dante, he is instantly recognized by his deceased relatives – everyone appears as skeletons – and is informed that he must return to the world of the living before sunrise with the family’s blessing. The family stipulates in their blessing that he must abandon any musical pursuits. Miguel refuses, and seeks to find Ernesto de la Cruz and receive his blessing.

Along the way to find de la Cruz, Miguel will pair up with Héctor, a fellow unable to return to the land of the living and on the cusp of being forgotten by his daughter. 

Día de Los Muertos (also known without the “Los”; “The Day of the Dead”) is a Mexican holiday with Aztec origins that has been synthesized with Catholic elements. The holiday, known superficially among non-Mexican-Americans in the United States, might not be as familiar to audiences outside the Americas. But Molina and co-screenwriter Matthew Aldrich do their damndest to introduce the holiday, Mexican culture, even more than several snippets of Spanish throughout. This has been covered before in Jorge Gutiérrez’s The Book of Life (2014), another musical animated film delving into the Day of the Dead. Then again, there is boatloads of Christmas media that has been produced by American television and movie studios, so there should be room for more than one Day of the Dead movie. The animators certainly have taken great care of their worldbuilding and although the colorful Coco does not highlight the incredible visual bounds Pixar has innovated with each film (The Good Dinosaur’s photorealism, water animation breakthroughs in Finding Dory), the layered wide shots in the Land of the Dead recall what the multiplane camera provided for Walt Disney Animation Studios in the 1930s.

Preventing Coco from being top-tier Pixar is its tendency towards exposition dumps, a plot structure dependent on fakeouts that is becoming predictable and tired (something that keeps reappearing from Frozen to Big Hero 6 to Zootopia and unfortunately, I cannot elaborate any spoilers), and lightly treading on heavier moments (think of nursery rhymes that, after the first two stanzas, reveal stories dark and twisted, never recited by most parents). Molina and Aldrich spend too much of their screenplay having the dead characters explain their world, rather than it revealing itself to the audience. Once the basic rules are established for the Land of the Dead, they neglect Miguel and his living family. The living family also disdain Miguel’s wishes to become a musician, so how does he reconcile his love for family with their attacks on his true passion? The movie never makes that clear, missing a compelling facet of characterization. It is too focused on its an increasingly repetitive journey-to-x adventure (see: Inside Out, which I loved despite that criticism) that reveal more about the supporting characters than it does the leads. Not that exploring supporting characters is a terrible thing, but the aforementioned explains one reason why I haven’t truly connected with a Pixar lead character in a non-sequel since Up.

As I have mentioned before, personal and collective loss have been central to Pixar’s greatest movies since the beginning. Titles like Finding Nemo (2003) and the entire Toy Story series have been premised in loss – some losses being more abstract than others, like the emptiness of humanity found among the passengers of the Axiom in WALL-E (2008). Coco takes these themes further than all of these previous films, acknowledging that death is its central theme and not an accessory to characterization. All other subjects, feelings, and ideas can queue behind it as Coco inspires tears. Here, death takes on a culturally specific context approaching areas that major American animation studios have rarely endeavored: that death can inspire both anguish for whom one has lost and celebration for how they lived their lives. It is how one conducts themselves in life that informs how we die – even if one’s death is unexpected, senseless, arbitrary, excruciating.

Coco wants to reaffirm that, through the characters of Héctor and Ernest de la Cruz, that a person’s goodness will impact how they live in others’ memories, but takes a circuitous way to that point. The film neglects others who do not have a distant family member who can embark on an adventure through the Land of the Dead for them – in depicting the celebratory half of death, Coco forgets how death can devastate. The two can be balanced (see: Up), so it is an unnecessary compromise.

The closest Coco comes to darkness is the fact that, when a resident of the Land of the Dead no longer has anyone on Earth who remembers them, they disappear. This idea is first introduced when we meet Chicharrón, a musician friend of Héctor’s, whose time is dwindling. Chicharrón’s second and, perhaps, final passing occurs in silence and stillness, not entirely at peace. I wished that, while leaving Chicharrón’s shack with guitar in hand and after explaining the metaphysics of the Land of the Dead, Héctor took the time to tell Miguel things like why he and Chicharrón were friends, what he found admirable about him, a single memorable moment, and what he would miss about him. This need not have been a ten-minute retelling of Chicharrón’s life story, but it would have helped to show younger audiences that, yes, some are forgotten after death, but also the complexity of memory’s weight: how those we love most continue to live, in a way, when they have passed on. Though death devastates, it is not to be feared.

Coco is also a musical journey featuring a good score from Michael Giacchino (his fourth and final film score of the year, and his second-best behind War for the Planet of the Apes), but especially the songs penned by Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez (Frozen and the upcoming Frozen 2). Orchestrator Germaine Franco (an orchestrator decides upon the instrumentation of the score; Kung Fu Panda series, The Book of Life), was brought in to assure the music’s authenticity. Michoacano and Oaxacan (two states in Mexico) music is featured, as is a variety of genres: mariachi, banda, chilena, and norteño. Solo guitar, violin, pan flute, and trumpet respective to all those genres lead the orchestral-based score. A more qualified person should judge the appropriateness of Giacchino’s score, but, to me, it does not sound like a poor imitation of Mexican music that I might have expected from him about ten years ago. Giacchino continues to progress as a composer, knowing how to adjust his styles for the films he is working on.

Yet it is the song score from the Lopezes that take center stage in Coco, and no song is as important as “Remember Me”/”Recuérdame” (all provided links are the Spanish-language versions, as they are superior to the English-language versions – note that this review has been written on the basis of the English-language version). The song’s first appearance, sung by Ernesto de la Cruz in a flashback, is an energetic ballad replete with an awesome grito (a Mexican interjection analogous to an American cowboy’s “yeehaw”). But the song’s integration in its next two placements that will break the eye’s floodgates. Without saying too much, the lullaby and its final use in the film proper are marvelous examples of how a song may evolve in meaning from the beginning to the end. It changes with context; it changes as Miguel finds his way home. Pedro Infante and Jorge Negrete would be proud.

Marcela Davison Aviles (President/CEO of the Mexican Heritage Corporation) and playwright Octavio Solis joined Lalo Alcaraz as Pixar’s cultural consultants on Coco. Noting and implementing the suggestions from these three proved difficult for Unkrich, Molina, and the producers at Pixar, but it has been well worth it in the end. Aviles critiqued the film’s music, Solis examined the theatrical presentation of the film, and Alcaraz, “looked to include more Mexican elements in the film when possible, like additional Spanish in the dialogue, and made suggestions on specific words.” Says Alcaraz: “I think we struck a good balance on giving comments that helped the cultural authenticity of the story without bogging it down as if it were some kind of Día de Los Muertos documentary.”

Quality representation in American cinema has always been difficult (this is a classic film blog, so I should know something about that), and some movie executives say “catering” to minority communities is not worth the risk. When done correctly and with respect, the results are incredible to behold. Such fortune has followed Coco from the moment it premiered in Mexico, endearing itself to Mexicans and non-Mexicans alike. It is on its way to becoming the highest-grossing Pixar film in China (where Pixar has historically struggled). The Chinese censors have, in the past, enforced a rigid ban on the depiction of ghosts and other undead. But I sense in Coco’s case, because the veneration of the deceased is so prominent in China (as is the case in many East and Southeast Asian nations; being Vietnamese-American, my extended family’s practice of ancestor veneration is the most prominent aspect immune to Americanization), the censors did not mind this time. If your movie can even make a censor feel feelings to the point where they are not executing the letter of the law, you must be doing something right!

Perhaps my criticisms of Coco are actually quibbles, but I guess I will only know upon any rewatches. In any case, Coco is one of the strongest films – animated or otherwise – released this calendar year. It attempts storytelling that other contemporary animation studios and filmmakers are too hesitant to try. It builds understanding in a year where the nation this film came from has turned inward, benefitting none. That alone makes this newest Pixar film worth seeing.

My rating: 8/10

^ Based on my personal imdb rating. My interpretation of that ratings system can be found here.

#Coco #Pixar #Lee Unkrich #Adrian Molina #Lalo Alcaraz #Matthew Aldrich #Jason Katz #Michael Giacchino #Robert Lopez #Kristen Anderson Lopez #Germaine Franco #Marcela Davison Aviles #Octavio Solis #My Movie Odyssey

[tigerlover16-uk]

So, what is the deal with tumblr's weird beef with Pixar's new movie Coco? I see a lot of people complaining about it and I don't get why

That’s actually a really interesting subject, because there’s quite a lot to unpack there:

1: Earlier into the films production, Disney tried to trademark the phrase “Dia de los muertos”, the Mexican name for the Day of the Dead holiday that the movie is based around. Naturally this resulted in justifiable outrage and disgust from Mexican citizens and fans at a company trying to trademark a holiday that holds great significance to their culture. Thankfully Disney quickly backed down after realizing how stupid they had been, but it still left many people bitter and weary of how the movie was going to turn out.

2: You heard of The Book of Life? It’s another movie based around the same holiday released about three years ago. It was generally well received by critics, but had something of a broken base reception among audiences for a variety of reasons, and made just shy of $100 million at the worldwide box office on a $50 million budget, making it only a very modest success at best. Though it has a passionate fandom especially here on tumblr.

Part of that has to do with the fact that it was directed by Jorge Gutierrez, a talented Mexican director and animator probably best known for creating the Nickelodeon show El Tigre. He’s a nice guy from what I’ve seen and very passionate about his culture and his works.

Tumblr and many social justice advocates are very passionate about pushing for a wider range of diversity in the media, and that includes behind the scenes and supporting the work of minority creators in Hollywood and the entertainment Industry in general (And understandably, it is an important cause).

So when Pixar announced the release date for a film also based on the Day of the Dead holiday, directed by a white man, fans of The Book of Life and Jorge became immediately salty over the prospect, since with Pixar’s pedigree even if the movie turned out not well received it was all but guaranteed to make WAY more money and get far more publicity from both the general public and the animation community than the Book of Life did, maybe even having a shot at winning best animated feature Oscar due to the academy’s bias towards Disney and Pixar due to their general disregard to animation as a legitimate art form worthy of their attention.

3: Disney have a very shaky history with representing non-white groups of people and cultures, many of their classic and even recent movies featuring offensive stereotypes or just downright racist stories, the most well known example being Pocahontas, a movie where if you know anything at all about the real life person it’s story is “Based” on, you’d… be pretty insulted, to say the least.

They’ve gotten better at this to an extent this century, Moana for example despite some complaints was pretty well researched and the filmmakers clearly cared about doing their best to respect Polynesian culture. But a lot of people are just suspicious whenever Disney release a work vaguely like Coco made by a white director and mostly white crew. The fact that it’s specifically Pixar making the film doesn’t alleviate this sentiment, since they’re owned by and heavily connected to Disney.

This also ties in with the previous point, where Book of Life fans and people who want to see more support for movies about Mexico and their culture by actual Mexican creators feel embittered about the situation with Coco, to the point of calling it a rip-off based on any even coincidental similarity they perceive between the two films.

Disney did recognise this, and brought on a Latino co-director in Adrian Molina, and a number of high profile Latino consultants including the CEO of the Mexico Heritage Corp Marcela Davison Aviles to help make sure the film was as accurate and respectful to Mexican culture and the traditions behind the Day of the Dead holiday as possible, the director and crew already having done extensive research to have achieved this from the start of production.

This helped alleviate some people’s concerns, but for many the damage was already done and among many here on Tumblr there was lingering resentment both from Book of Life fans and many people who just felt that a film about Mexican culture should have been the work of Mexican creators from the start. So the movie had a hard time winning over much of it’s detractors pre-release.

And, while I think there’s more I could add and probably I don’t know about, I think that covers a lot of the main points.

From what I’ve seen, Coco has been unanimously well received in Mexico upon release, and despite the attitudes of his fans Jorge Gutierrez loved the movie, and was very excited about having multiple animated movies about an important holiday from his culture being made (A sentiment echoed by many Mexican people and fans as to why the complaints about being a rip-off of Book of Life just from being based around the same holiday were unfair and jumping the gun, since how many movies do we have about Christmas and Halloween?).

So, it looks like things turned out fine regardless of the controversy. Now, I haven’t seen the movie. And I’ll say upfront, I’m a white-British guy who only has a basic knowledge about Mexico and it’s culture. I can’t tell you how accurate and respectful the movie is, whether it features any problematic elements or stereotypes and any of that. I probably wouldn’t be qualified to comment on that even after watching the film.

If there are Latino fans who have watched the movie, and are very passionate about their culture and how their people are represented in the media and they take issue with anything in the final product, I won’t argue too hard with them.

I will say though that a movie like this being made, and the way it’s been embraced by the people it’s representing, is a very important thing for Mexican people. We need more movies based on and which lovingly embrace and celebrate that country and it’s culture, now more than ever maybe with the rising anti-immigrant and anti-Latino sentiments in the United States, especially with President Crazy Steve and his “Let’s build a wall to keep those rapists out of our country and save our jerbs!!” nonsense. 

It’s important for non-Latino children to see movies portraying Mexico and it’s people in a positive way, and maybe even more so important for Latino children to see themselves in the media as the heroes more often than they do currently, especially those of immigrant families.

So, with the film now released and the very positive reception it’s got, you know… maybe we can all just calm down a little and accept this as a victory?

#coco #pixar #the book of life #pixar coco