What a gorgeous holiday weekend watch Encanto was!
So vivid, so bright. The colors are such a burst of joy!
Flowers sprout, pelicans and panthers prance. Landscapes are lush.
The music is so much fun, sometimes playing with traditional rhythms, sometimes conversational, sometimes pop song-esque, sometimes tender and sublime. Lin- Manuel Miranda and the Disney team apparently traveled to Colombia to learn about its diverse geography, flora and fauna, history, culture, and to imbibe the rhythms and cadences of folk music.
As someone who recently moved into a new home, the magic realism of a self decorating (self cleaning?? – the possibilities are endless!) enchanted house that opens new doors and grants gifts to its inhabitants spoke to my Marquez-loving soul in deep ways.
The story of La Familia Madrigal touches upon the pain of generational trauma while ultimately being uplifting and hopeful. Mirabel is the spirited heroine we can all channel in these troubled times, standing up to authority when the moment calls for that, while having the empathic imagination and the compassion to understand how pain can shape our lives and our decisions, and sculpt who we become, and how our pasts are alive in our presents, but the power and potency of hope lies in holding on to the idea that our futures can have lives of their own, lives that we have the power to shape.
(SOMEWHAT OF A SPOILER ALERT!)
Sometimes renewal and rising above adversity may mean that cracks need to widen, the home needs to collapse, before a family can define again what home really means.