Encanto Review

 

Last night I watched Encanto for the second time. I cried my eyes out the first time. I cried my eyes out MORE the second time. I'm not liking this trend line.

I want to like this movie and I do like this movie. At least surviving it twice, I have a chance to think more about it. And true disclosure, I've NOT watched or read any reviews for it beyond one article from early in 2022 about how Lin-Manuel Miranda went away for his Christmas holiday and "We Don't Talk About Bruno" was not a hit and when it came back, it was. That was a surprise because really the two caterpillars song was much more emotionally enticing. But the word on the street was that everyone had a family with at least on member that they don't talk about. That's why that song hit a familiar nerve and shot to popularity.

We'll come back to Bruno soon.

So this time, the closed captioning was working very well and I was able to understand quite a bit more that was previously only in Spanish (i.e. biggest example, I just called it the two caterpillars song and indeed, I'm not sure I knew THAT last time.)

You should know that if the world was separated into people who love to watch the same movies over and over and people who love to watch new movies, I'm in the former group. For 2 unfortunate reasons I think:

1. I honestly forget what happens. I have an "idear" but the details elude me. So I when I started watching Encanto, I could NOT remember how Mirabel helped her family.  So it's fun...but like going to a theme park a second time. Even if you know the ride, you're not quite sure how this trip will go. And if it's a little different, all the better. For me, different would just be me noticing new things.

2. I think I'm trapped in some sort of 7th grade English "You will be doomed to wonder what the theme is" ever since I enjoyed reading "The Thread That Runs So True" but FOR THE LIFE OF ME I COULD NOT PICK OUT THAT THE THEME WAS EDUCATION. Damn, that was a tough moment for me. So I'm trapped there, stuck wondering 'what is the theme' for every experience I have. Oh well.

So what is the theme for Encanto?  This time I was wondering "OK, how bad really is the granny?" I don't get why her and Mirabel are at logger heads.

So I watched the ending and the scene at the river near the end VERY closely this time (and didn't shy away from the prophecy scene--I did the first time b/c it was set up too much like a seance.) Where does the butterfly come in? What does it mean? How does everything get "healed" with, at first, the hug with the sister?

OK. It's the next morning and I think I got it. I will be going to read reviews to see if I guessed correctly.

Mirabel emphasizes that it was/is the grandmother that is the strength of the family. Abuela is the candle. Every time we see the candle flame good and strong, that is the grandmother as strong. But when Abuela says she's never been back to the river--that's a very telling sign. It says that she does NOT return to the moment when she lost her husband in his act of sacrifice. By not acknowledging it, she shuts it out of her life. Then take that and emphasize it.  The grandmother suppresses and puts out of the family any "gift" that reminds her of negativity or... as she says so frequently early in the film, anything that does not strengthen the community and the family (poorly put....and importantly put...in that order: community BEFORE family). So she puts the order wrong (it is family BEFORE community) and she ignores anything negative.

Let's go back and see how by looking at the children and their gifts.

Who answers this call of Abeula the strongest? To put community first and foremost?

Luisa! She even gets a song about how draining it is to be under so much pressure to take care of EVERYTHING.

Next up: Isabella gets a song/revelation about how she is EXPECTED to be perfect, so she can't step a toe out of line and that, eventually frustrates her.

We have their mother Julieta, who is healer via food which helps the community but she seems to be unable to both help her own daughter Mirabel in confrontations with her mother, Abuela.

She's shown as having "lost" her brother Bruno and they mutually feel it the most with Bruno's heartbreaking "seat" at the table just off the kitchen. He misses her in his reality.

So in this branch of the family, we have:

1 strong

1 perfect

1 healer

1 no gift/mistake/suppressed to stay "in the nursery"

In the next daughter of Abuela, Pepa, we seen more cracks develop. It's an emotional daughter but in EVERY case, she's chastised for having negative moments. 

She's NEVER thanked for good weather. Her frustration comes through in the movie in that you almost never find her without a storm cloud. Her husband is her balm...but that's very telling. If you have to go to another family to get help, something was really wrong with your original family.

She has a daughter, Delores, who can hear well.  

 

But this only portrayed as a positive gift at the very end of the movie in that she knows her soon-to-be-betrothed writes poetry and loves his mother. All through the movie this gift is not a gift, she's a troublemaker.

See the trend line we are on here.

Next we have her brother, Camilo, and you can clearly SEE us getting to Bruno soon because this son is so suppressed for his shapeshifting gift, he's the embodiment of not being allowed to be who he is. 

 

 Abeula only uses his gift when it suits her. Very telling...

We'll skip Mirabel because she's the plot of the entire movie.

And we get to Bruno, who is so shunned and hated for his gift, that he leaves.

And the stunning thing about this 2nd watching for me was...why was no one bothered by that?  I mean, "We Don't Talk About Bruno" is a great song, yes. But it's the largest red flag in the world. A mother that does not care where her son is?  Sisters that don't mention his name? Cousins that wonder but have NO story about him other than his tower is off limits? Husbands that are close to useless in this story --although, hat tip that they try.

So...back to Abuela, Alma Madrigal.  What was her problem? She suppresses any gift that does not seem positive as a response to the agony she felt at the river.

Mirabel figures it out when she says "you were the strength all along" and the song implies that via the death of the grandfather (his gift, his early conversion to a butterfly into a new dimension) --via that change, the grandfather embodied negative circumstances that STILL support the family. He saved them.  The grandmother became the strength (that's why a woman, not a man, portrays strength as Luisa 2 generations later) and she escaped with the family and built the family.

But in the act of escaping and protecting, her strength, her gift shut out the corresponding gift---

That good things can come from negative circumstances.

.

Bruno is reconciled at the end. And he's a charming character after all. He sees his own faults and we can come to love him for them. 

All this week before watching the movie, I've been emboding the line, "I'm Jorge, I make the spackle."

Per typical Disney, there are enough side jokes to keep the movie moving. The color and the sounds and the vibrancy of Columbia just astound me...even in this animated form. I guess I should say something about the house, casita.  She's enchanted (thank you closed captioning for telling me what Encanto means) but I think we are left to realize that the house IS the family and the family IS the house.  When the community comes to rebuild it...I think there are a tons of stories that could be spin offs right there.

OK, I gotta stop this or I'll cry for the third time. I'm off to find some reviews.