#I didn’t give mirabel glasses because I was focused more on the expressions | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

dikanamai · 2 years

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Ok, I need to watch Encanto 2957950281 times more to absorb every bit of it, but in the meantime here's a list with some little details I loved:

—That habit Mirabel has of wiping her hands before touching a doorknob. We see little Mirabel do it before her magic door, excited about the upcoming gift; but 10 years later she keeps doing it, as if she had developed a subtle anxiety about closed doors. Or perhaps she just sweats a lot, lol; Bruno's "you're very sweaty" seems to back up that. It was something so mundane that I loved it.

—The GLASSES. As a short-sighted woman who's been wearing glasses for more than 25 years, I really really really appreciated Mirabel's glasses and all the unconscious movements associated to them. Every time she had to readjusted her glasses because they fell or slipped over her nose, I was like 8D (that scene in Bruno's room with her glasses full of sand, omg)

—Actually, Mirabel herself is just amazing. I was afraid they could give us the dorky-girl-with-glasses archetype, but thank God they didn't. She's unique and so tree-dimensional: her expressions, her body language, her energy, her optimistic but not childish behavior. The latter is very important, tbh, because optimistic female characters are often infantilized and portrayed as too innocent and easy to fool. Mirabel's actually pretty mature (emotionally mature, at least), and brave and strong and soft and loving, and she seems just real, not fitting any defining archetype/trope that constrains her personality. How awesome is that, folks.

—Mirabel and Antonio’s scene under the bed, it’s probably one of the sweetest things I’ve seen in a Disney movie between relatives T_T I can't believe how much love they share, it made me feel at home all the time.

—Everything about the triplets, asjflgljshaklaldk, from Julieta's "my brother lost himself in this family" (no idea what does she say in the English version, I watched the movie in Spanish) to Pepa's rain cloud anytime someone mentions her brother. These three are so great, I wish they had had more screentime together.

—The fact that Pepa's actually pretty done with her mother's pressure! *—* All those "¡Ya lo sé, mamá!", "¡Ya lo estoy intentando!", "¡Alégrate de que no sea un huracán!" every time that Alma remarks she 'has a cloud' were wonderful. It adds an extra layer to Pepa's character, but it also felt so realistic, because it's not like if everyone in the house were following Alma mindlessly without a word. Her daughters are grown up women too, and they confront her when necessary, even if they keep respecting her as the head of the family. Another portrayal of the dynamics between the family's elders that I really appreciated.

—The fact that Julieta spoke out to her mother to be gentler with Mirabel, and how clear she was later telling Alma that Mirabel's desperation was her fault. The way Julieta protects and loves her daughter means a lot, because she clearly adores her, but she also escapes the stereotype of cheesy loving mamá without personality which only purpose is to stand there and support the main character in everything like some sort of dummy. Perhaps Julieta thought Mirabel was imagining things when she saw Casita's cracks during Antonio's fiesta, but she didn't gaslight her daughter about it, she was genuinely worried about her stressing herself out to that point, because Julieta knows better than anyone what such stress can do to a person (due to her brother and her sister), and understands the value of taking a break.

—Actually, one of my absolute favorite things of the movie was this network of relationships. We're used to see how everything usually focuses on the main character: we see how everyone interacts with the protagonist, what they mean to the protagonist, all the paths seem to lead to the protagonist. But here there're many stories running on the background: the relationship of Pepa, Julieta and Bruno with their mother and between them, the husbands/brothers-in-law supporting their wives and children, the missing abuelo and the abuela's trauma, Dolores' secret love, Isa and Luisa's worries, Bruno's guilt… Every one of them has their own story, and the tapestry they create is just great. I've always missed this kind of thing in Disney movies and I'm so happy they've finally given it to us.

—Felix and Agustín are the best husbands/fathers ever, my God. I saw someone commenting Felix and Pepa have Gómez/Morticia vibes and THAT'S SO TRUE, lol. Also, the amount of casual kisses or affectionate touches the couples shared made me smile so much, it's wonderful being able to find some healthy, functional marriages in their fifties being in love and acting like a team.

—THAT MOMENT when Mirabel goes to check the candle and hears Alma praying to Pedro, alsjfkgldjajtl, omfg, that hit hard, because my abuelas ALWAYS DID THE SAME THING. One of them widowed some years before our Civil War, when she was on her thirties with 4 children to raise, and Alma reminded me of her so much I'm getting emotional again right now writing about it T_______T

—How well Luisa portrays not just the middle-child complex, but also the pressure that society imposes on women to be strong, to handle every chore and every burden, to never take a break, to not show weakness, to be always available for other's needs. Madre mía, they did something great with Luisa's character and I have a lot to say about it. Also, that what she needs to learn is that she deserves rest, time to take care of herself, to be more than a mula de carga, and that crying is ok if you need it. What a beautiful moment when, during "All of you", she says "yeah, but sometimes I cry" and Isa and Mirabel just go "ME TOO :D" and they hug, like… yeah, we're a mess, but we can be a mess together, and that's fucKING WONDERFUL.

—The same goes for Isa, because she represents so well both the eldest child complex and the stereotype of perfection society imposes on women. I love how all her little gestures of annoyance towards Mirabel showed how much effort she was putting on keeping her façade in place. She played the role of perfect nieta for Alma to make her proud, and it's absolutely realistic that her little sister without any responsibilities and her carefree attitude were getting on her nerves. From Isa's point of view, Mirabel has nothing to prove to anyone, because nobody expects great things of her, while she has to carry all the weight of being not just the eldest sister, but the eldest nieta. I'm the youngest in my family, so Mirabel's feeling of isolation, of never being enough, of being left behind, is more relatable to me. But I know the struggles eldest children have to face too, and the tension between these two is one of my favorite parts of Mirabel's journey. They reminded me a lot of some of my best friends' relationships with their sisters, and their reconciliation left me very emotional too.

—All the little tics and rituals of Bruno, lol. And his design, his behavior, his love for his family, EVERYTHING ABOUT BRUNO. The idea of Dolores hearing him in the walls all those years (and communicating with him somehow) lives rent free in my heart. But I especially love that moment when Alma cut off his speech with a hug and that loving "Brunito" before kissing him softly, it made my fucking day. That, and the triplets' reunion, THAT GROUP HUG, HELL YES, I ASKED THIS MOVIE JUST ONE THING AND IT GAVE IT TO ME, HOW COULDN'T I LOVE IT.

—THE CLIMAX with that amazing argument between Alma and Mirabel, omfg, I was on tears the whole scene. I loved how afraid of confronting the abuela Isa and Luisa were, bending like puppies, and I thought it was necessary they reacted that way, because then Mirabel's speech could stand out. Mirabel is the family hero in that moment, the only one brave enough to yell to Alma all the truths she needs to hear and tell her to stop that madness. And I also love Alma's outburst, spitting out all that shit that was eating her from inside (the problems began with you, Bruno left because of you, Bruno left because he didn't care about us, I'm losing all of them because everything is going to hell because of you). Fuck, I love Alma so much, because she's a broken woman with so so soooo much fear that it blinds her, and she's losing what she cares the most about because she's unable to handle it any longer. After 50 years forced to be the strong matriarch everyone relies on, she finally reaches her limit, faces something she doesn't know how to manage, and when she blows up, so does Casita. She's imperfect, she was wrong, she screwed things up, and the movie LET HER BE THAT WAY without vilifying her, because she's not a villain, she's just a fallible human. That's the point: women are people and they have the right to be something more than the pure, sweet lil princess or the evil witch. I know it's not perfect, I know they could've done better, but really, this must be one of the best examples of complex female characters in Disney, if not The Best.

—THE WHOLE SCENE OF DOS ORUGUITAS, but especially those last kisses Pedro gave to his babies and his wife, just before facing their attackers, HOLY SHIT T__T AND ALMA'S BREAKDOWN SEING HIM DIE *cries an ocean*

—And finally the very best thing of the whole movie: Alma acknowledging Mirabel's pain and apologizing, AND Mirabel acknowledging Alma's suffering/trauma and showing her explicit understanding. THIS is the heart of Encanto and I can't be more grateful for it. Coco failed spectacularly achieving this, because Miguel never acknowledged explicitly Imelda's grief. The most sympathetic thing he said to her great-great-grandma was "you don't have to forgive him if you don't want to", and so a lot of people just saw in Imelda an overdramatic bitch full of senseless hate. That pissed me off, like if being abandoned by your husband at 20something with a 4 years old baby to raise right after a fucking war wasn't bad enough to cause her her own trauma (but, well, what can I say, Pixar uses to be pretty hostile towards its female characters and women in general). I was expecting a lot more of Encanto, and the movie gave me just what I wanted, SO THANK YOU SO MUCH. The ¿sorority? (what's the fucking term for "sororidad" in English?) between the women in this movie is so outstanding I wanna scream.

And that leads me to the last point: I LOVED that Mirabel's adventure wasn't an individual search of some kind of great achievement for herself nor learning how to be strong alone. I LOVED Encanto was about a girl talking and bonding with her family, listening to them, making them listening to her, walking together the path of understanding and forgiveness and working together to rebuilt their relationship. The more I think about it, the more I feel like crying again, because holy shit… it's beautiful af.

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