I Watch Films: Coco

 

Coco

In the Mexican town of Santa Cecilia, Miguel is a young boy from a family of shoemakers who wants to play music, with a particular love of musician Ernesto De la Cruz, the most famous son of the town. However his great-great-grandmother Imelda banned music from the family after her musician husband left her and their daughter Coco to play music. Imelda is now dead, and Coco elderly and failing, Abuelita, Coco’s daughter and Miguel’s grandmother now in charge of the family and still banning music. Miguel knocks a picture off the ofrenda, the family altar for the Day Of The Dead, and discovers that his great-great-grandfather is there, the head torn off but holding Ernesto De La Cruz’s famous guitar. Wanting to play music at the town festival, Abuelita refuses to let him and breaks his guitar. Miguel runs off, accompanied by a street dog.

No one will lend him a guitar as they need them to play at the town festival! He breaks into Ernesto De La Cruz’s tomb and steals the guitar, only to find that no one can see him and there are skeletons everywhere. He has stolen from the dead on the Day Of The Dead and been cursed! He meets some of his dead relatives and they take him to the Land Of The Dead to find out what’s going on. It turns out Imelda can’t return to the land of the living for the day as her picture is no longer on the ofrenda.

In the offices they figure out that this is a family curse, so Miguel can return to life in exchange for a family blessing. However Imelda puts a condition on it; that he give up music. Miguel refuses, goes to seek Ernesto, believing he is an ancestor who can give him the blessing. He teams up with Héctor, a down on his luck skeleton who claims to know Ernesto. Hector wants Miguel to put his photo on the ofrenda so he can return before his daughter, who is elderly and ailing, forgets him, and then he will fade and vanish. They travel through the Land Of The Dead to where Ernesto is having a party in a tower, before his big Sunrise Spectacular concert (sunrise is also Miguel’s deadline, when the Day (Night) Of The Dead ends).

Ernesto turns out not to be an ancestor, and Héctor accuses him of stealing his songs. Ernesto turns out to be a villain in fact, and thus the final confrontation of the film is set.

A gloriously colourful and great sounding children’s animated adventure film, combining Mexican culture, the importance of family, of ambition and betrayal. If it’s a little silly and simplistic, and presents the central puzzle very obviously, it maintains a charm and momentum throughout. Makes death melancholy, but also a natural part of life.

Watch This: Fun, bright and interesting kid’s cartoon
Don’t Watch This: Occasionally visually confusing, very predictable