Coco: Cartoon About Day of The Dead

Is a 3D computer-animated film produced by Pixar Animation Studios and released by Walt Disney Pictures. This film is directed by Lee Unkrich and co-directed by Adrian Molina. The idea for Coco is inspired by a Mexican cultural event named Día de Muertos (Sometimes is called Día de Los Muertos), which means Day of the Dead. This event focuses on the gatherings of family members to commemorate and help the spiritual journey of the family members that have passed away to visit their family again. Coco is the first animated film to feature an all-Latino principal cast with a nine-figure budget, of $175 million. This film is praised for its smooth and beautiful animation, good voice acting, impressive music, emotional story, and respect for Mexican culture. Furthermore, Coco was chosen as the Best Animated Film of 2017 by the National Board of Review, won two Academy Awards for Best Animated Feature and Best Original Song (The song is “Remember Me”), and won the Best Animated Film at the BAFTA Awards, Golden Globe Awards, Critic’s Choice Movie Awards, and Annie Awards.

The story centers on Miguel, a 12-year-old boy, who wants to be a musician despite a strong objection from his family that forbids music. On the Day of the Dead, he steals the guitar in a mausoleum to participate in a musical contest. This causes him to be cursed, in which he can see and only able to interact with dead people that are in skeletal form. Miguel must receive blessings from his dead family before sunrise to return to normal. However, his great-great-grandmother only agrees to give him a blessing if he will not become a musician. Miguel refuses this and goes to seek blessing from Ernesto instead, who Miguel thought is his great-great-grandfather.

Along the way, Miguel meets Hector, who claims to know Ernesto and will help Miguel if Miguel put up his photo in the living world so that he can visit his daughter before she forgets him and he disappears completely. After several hardships, Miguel separates with Hector, sneaks into Ernesto’s mansion, and meets Ernesto. Ernesto welcomes Miguel, but the meeting turns into conflict when Hector comes to ask Miguel for help again. It is later discovered that Ernesto had killed Hector and took his songs and guitar as his own. Not wanting the truth to be known, Ernesto takes Hector’s photo and throws Hector and Miguel to a pit. Miguel and Hector reconcile, and Miguel finds out that Hector is his real great-great-grandfather. Miguel’s family comes and help them out of the pit. They then go together to take back Hector’s photo. When Miguel’s family was fighting with Ernesto for the photo, Ernesto’s secret is broadcast, and he is crushed by a giant bell. However, Hector’s photo is lost and it is almost sunrise. Miguel is quickly sent back by his family without condition. Knowing Coco’s life and memory are fading, Miguel quickly goes back and plays “Remember Me” to her. Coco then brightens up and sings along. Then, Coco gives him the torn-off piece of Hector’s face from the family photo and Coco’s letters from Hector. Coco’s letters are used to prove that Ernesto stole Hector’s songs, causing Hector to be rightfully honored.

The reason why I choose this film is that I like animation films and the course I am taking involves 3D animation. I only heard that this film is very good from my friends. However, I couldn’t watch this film when it was released in theatres as the subjects of my course are very heavy, so I didn’t have any free time. I needed a reason to watch this film in my busy time and luckily, this subject gave me the reason to. When I watched it, I immediately fell in love with the smooth animation and quickly notices things that are taught from my subjects are being applied in this film. I also constantly think of how the animators manage to pull off certain effects shown in the film and learn from it. I am very happy that I have watched this film and this film has greatly exceeded my expectations. If I had watched it when it was just released, I would have quickly recommended this film to lots of my friends so that they can enjoy it too.

The main theme of this film, it is obviously never giving up in achieving your dream. As mentioned just now, Miguel’s family strictly forbids him to learn or play music. If we are to be in Miguel’s feet, I think most of us, if not all, would be disheartened to do what we want. It’s not support that we will get from our family, but constant nagging instead. Imagine being told not to do what we want and keep being denied from it, I’m very sure it would be very frustrating. Therefore, I have great respect towards Miguel. He can keep moving forward, trying to do what he loves despite all the obstacles he encountered. His actions really inspire me to work harder and do what I love the most. This is also one of the messages the director, Unkrich, tries to bring across. He hopes that this film can make people think about their families more and ways that they can honor the people that they love. I like how the film portrayed Imelda, Miguel’s great-great-grandmother, starting to have a change of heart against Miguel when he voiced out his feelings of how much he loves music. No matter how much our family disapproves of what we love to do, we are still a family after all. Our family wants us to be happy, so they should allow us to do what we love once they understand that.

In my opinion, the release of Coco must have given some sooth and love to the Mexican that felt offended and disrespected when Donald Trump, the President of America, wants to build a wall separating the border between US and Mexico. While Donald Trump wants to build a wall, Pixar built a bridge made of marigold petals. “We all feel incredibly humbled and grateful to be a part of putting something into the world that has had as much an effect on an entire community as ‘Coco’ has,” said director Lee Unkrich. Despite the movie focusing on Mexican cultures, it is surprising how easily Coco can be related to many types of audiences. One of the types is the youth. Today’s youths, including me, are less likely to follow the footprints of our parents, we want to present ourselves as what we are and what we like. Therefore, I think we can relate easily to Miguel with his struggles to follow his dream, just like us. Another type of audience would be young working adults. While it may not be obvious, Coco also encourages us to never lose our principles to achieve our dreams. We, young adults, tend to think that we have to be independent in order to be successful.