I saw “Coco” with my Spanish class back in highschool when it first came out. The movie is about a holiday, Dia de los muertos, celebrated in Mexico. The holiday is about the family of a deceased person honoring them by putting up photos, offering food, lighting candles, singing songs, etc. Our main character, Miguel, dreams of becoming a musician just like his idol Ernesto de la Cruz, his grandfather. However, due to his family’s bad history with music, he is not allowed to partake in any musical activities. In the middle of his family’s holiday activities, Miguel sneaks off to get a guitar for a musical show. Desperate to prove his talent, Miguel strums the guitar and he magically lands in the land of the dead.
Soon, Miguel meets Hector, and the two new friends embark on a journey to unlock Miguel’s family history. Miguel promises hector that he will put his photo in the world so that Hector could be remembered. However, Miguel must finish this task quickly or else he will start to become a skeleton and stay in the land of the dead forever. In fact, he already has skeleton-looking hands.
Towards the end of the movie, we learn that Ernesto de la Cruz is not Miguel’s real grandfather, Hector is. Hector used to work with Ernesto, however, the latter betrayed Hector and poisoned him, sending him to the land of the dead.
There are a lot of examples of doubling within this movie. Ernesto represents light and blessings while Hector represents darkness and curse. Miguel is trying not to become the skeleton version of himself, and has to hide his disappearing body from the rest of the land of the dead. He even paints his face to look like a skeleton. There is also a lot of paralleling from the real world to the land of the dead.
Finally, Miguel gets to go back home and Hector gets to meet the rest of his family. Miguel is also welcomed to continue in his musical path, and become just like his idol, Hector.
Thank you so much for reading this week’s blog post! I really appreciate it and I hope you look forward to the next one!