Pixar's 19th feature has more or less been conceived as a tribute
to Mexican culture. Its writer-director Lee Unkrich was the brains behind
2010's "Toy Story 3." This latest Pixar is the first, to my knowledge
at least, to deal with non-Caucasian lead human characters. In fact, that's
probably the most innovative part of "Coco," which is nevertheless a
transporting and entertaining addition to the Pixar canon.
Miguel, however, loves music and violates the Rivera rule – over the
years, he has taught himself to play the guitar in the isolated family attic,
which has become a shrine filled with lit candles and placarded pictures of his
musical idol Ernesto de la Cruz (Benjamin Bratt). De la Cruz died young, when
he was smashed by a church bell while performing, but he left countless
classics in both song and musical black and white films, of which Miguel has
memorized every word. Unkirch and his animators do Miguel’s finger playing on
his guitar strings in marvelously rendered way, you can truly feel every fret pushed
down and every string strummed.
Since there is no persuading the family to change their outlook on
music, Miguel's talent for elegant guitar playing and singing is kept secret.
He does put himself in a bit of heat when he announces to his family of his
intention to perform at the Día de los Muertos talent show as part of the
"Day of the Dead" traditional, yearly celebrations for which Mexico
is well known. The family becomes suspicious; Miguel’s replica Ernesto de la
Cruz skull-necked guitar is discovered and smashed by his abuelita (Renee
Victor). Miguel runs away, leaving his family in a panic.
Guitarless for the competition, Miguel decides to sneak into
Ernesto de la Cruz’s burial chamber, a kind of monument for the
legend, and steal his exhibited guitar. The act throws down a curse on
Miguel and has him sent down to the Land of the Dead, a kind of underworld
where skeletal figures loom, only surviving off their living relatives' memories
of them. The way Unkirch envisions this afterlife is as
a candy-colored metropolis filled with inescapably surreal moments.
Miguel does reunite with his passed-on family members, in skeletal
form no less, but refuses to take his great great-grandmother's blessing that
can only be given by a relative and that will let him return to the land of the
living. Why? Her stipulations for the blessing include never playing music
again. Miguel won't have this, and sets out to look for Ernesto de la Cruz, who
he thinks is the musician that abandoned his family three generations ago.
He hopes that de la Cruz will be able to give him the proper blessing to return
to the land of the living.
Post-screening, as I was speaking to people who know more about
the folklore depicted in "Coco" than I do, it seems that Unkrich's
depiction of the "Land of the Dead" is exactly as Mexicans well-versed
with the tales of the past would imagine it to look like. The colorful designs
that come with the Día de los Muertos celebrations are on full glorious display
in “Coco.” From the Ofrendas (altars of worship), to the brightly lit orange
petals that separate the bridge between the living and the dead, all the
way to the papal picados.
This is a representation of Mexican traditions in as realistic and authentic a
way as possible. Unkrich takes full advantage of the imagination that comes
with this highly colorful holiday. Even the alebrijes, the brightly luminescent
spirit animals, are there to help the dead in times of need.
Miguel is accompanied in his journey by Hector (Gael García
Bernal), a street hoodlum who cannot cross over to the other side due to his
family's memory of him slowly fading away and his picture not being on anyone's
Ofrenda – that's what keeps the dead "alive." The placement of a
picture on a shrine altar is enough to make them flourish in the land of the
dead, but Hector has none of that. He’s being forgotten and might waste into
the ether of nothingness if Miguel does not go back to the living and place
Miguel's picture on an altar. Hector wants to cross over and he sees
Miguel as his last true hop in doing so. Miguel accepts to help if Hector can
bring him to de la Cruz, whom Hector claims is a good friend of his. The boy's
Xoloitzcuintli sidekick dog, Dante, accompanies them and is much welcomed
comedy relief. Dante's is supposedly Mexico’s oldest breed of dog, an ugly
looking hairless type, with braindead eyes and a loose tongue that sticks out. This
is no brainy dog, au contraire, Dante's goofy bewilderingly air-headed behavior
is hilariously dead-on.
The predictable meeting between Miguel and de la Cruz happens, but
Unkrich makes sure to surprise you and lead you in a completely different
direction, one that cause the film's final few scenes hit you in such a
poignantly effective way. You are left with yet another Pixar film, which,
cue the waterworks, brings a whole other dimension to what was seemingly a
simple story of a boy trying to find his way back home.
The film is gorgeous, one of the most beautifully conceived and
colorful Pixar joints to date, but gone is the originality of "Inside
Out," or the Chaplin-esque poetry of "Ratatouille," or the
ferocious pro-environment message of "WALL-E." Instead,
"Coco" relies heavily on old-fashioned storytelling and its
gloriously realized setting filled with fluorescent colors abound to tell its
story, one with the universal message of never forgetting the memory of your
elders. The elder here, and most important central figure to the story, is
Miguel’s wrinkled, 97-year-old whose fading memory but deeply kept secrets lay
down an emotional resonance for us near the tail end of the film.
It’s a testament to Pixar’s creative ingenuity that they have
managed to make a film that tackles a subject matter as desolate as death in
ways that children could breezily process through and adults could ponder in
more thought-provoking ways. This is Pixar coming back, after the
disappointments of "Cars 3," and "The Good Dinosaur," and
reminding us that they are just in a league of their own when it comes to
animation [B+]