Saturday, April 23, 2022

Encanto (2021) directed by Jared Bush and Byron Howard, co-directed by Charise Castro Smith

 


Encanto is the lightest film about transgenerational trauma you might ever see. It manages to be fun, musical (thanks to Lin-Manuel Miranda) and still gets a pretty deep message across about how terrible events in the past can still affect the present, even effect those who were not alive at the time of the event. 

As expected from any Disney film recently, the animation is flawless, the skin tones and the colour palette is really complex and beautiful. They have a way of making the most complicated animated scenes look effortless and every frame brings you deeper into the film's world of magical realism. 

All the members of a family have been granted magical gifts after being chased from their homeland a generation or two ago but these powers seems to be fading. One family member, Mirabel, was not granted magic powers and it comes down to her to find out why things are changing and discover how to fix them. I won't spoil it, but the lives of her siblings are not was magical as one would be led to believe. 

I like how the time and place of the film is never defined and even the traumatic event is very broadly defined so it could be anywhere anytime. Well, anytime after photography was invented as they use a camera in the movie a couple times. 

A well done, well acted. and well sung film with a deeper side if you care to look into it. 

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