Disney's Encanto!

[Ben]

Well, most films' locations are usually integral to their plot. We watched Last Night In Soho last night (what a *great* ghost story!) and London was absolutely essential to it. Luca could have taken place anywhere, yet you could feel the Italian authenticity drip off the screen. Encanto just doesn’t have that, as that "actual Colombian" writer also attests can be missed. The magical house could be anywhere and still have Colombians living in it. I’m just saying that while watching it there didn’t *come across* anything that felt authentic or integral to why it was set there. Even Walt's South American features feel like they’re more paying tribute than Encanto, which kind of feels just arbitrarily set there. Yes, of course, it’s nice and good to see other places represented, like Canada in Turning Red, but there's usually a good reason stories take place in specific locations, which Encanto doesn’t have, at least for me and, it seems, quite a few other people. Anyway, the setting is the least of the film's problems, so…moving on…!

[James]

So glad others have seen this now so we can discuss it! But I’m way too busy with an article to get in too deep right now. But I wanted to get in with a quick comment on the setting points.

Randall’s right that a film has got to be set somewhere, so going somewhere outside the usual is definitely a plus. But Ben is right that in this case, for all the press about this being “Colombian”, it really is Colombian in name only. 98% of the film takes place within 100 yards of their house! We never really see Columbia. It’d be like making a big deal about The Princess and the Frog being set in New Orleans, then having the whole move take place in a single building with the only evidence we were in New Orleans being the characters’ accents.

I think the real issue is Disney oversold the importance of the locale in pre-release press because promoting your diversity bona fides is an easy way to get some free positive buzz these days. That got people expecting a Columbian-inspired Disney movie instead of just a Disney movie in Columbia.

[Farerb]

I think it was to the detriment of the movie eventually because people want "Disney" movies, and Disney didn't market this movie as a "Disney" movie, but they marketed Colombia, and from what I've seen people don't really care about Colombia (especially ones outside of North and South America) so they eventually didn't care about this movie.

And I agree that as much as this movie tried to market Colombia, it didn't really succeed in making me care about it, unlike movies like Coco or Moana.

I also don't get why they had to go too contemporary with the music, I'm sure Colombia has a more traditional type of music that they could have done instead of reggaeton and hip hop.

[Randall]

I don't really ever pay attention to promotional stuff (I know, ironic, coming from a co-founder of AV; but I've always kept to the editorial "after-the-fact" side of things, not the news "before-the-fact" side), so I didn't get the sense of it being promoted as a "Colombian movie." (Though, I did edit Jeremie's piece about the music, I suppose.) As usual, expectations can dictate a lot of the response.

[Ben]

Well, I didn’t have any expectations, and I wanted to like this…

[James]

I only watch a films initial trailer, so going in I didn’t know much either. I do go back and read some after the movie, because I work here and I’m interested! But even that single trailer I watched had only a single word spoken during it: someone singing the word “Columbia”.

[Randall]

Okay, I'll tell him.

It's "Colombia." With an "o".

[James]

Hey, I spelled it right 1/3rd of the time!

[Ben]

Good job it wasn’t a Sony movie…

[Randall]

I watched this on D+ with the family last night, and we all loved it. The reason for being set in Colombia, a land rife with problems that forces resettlement of entire families, seemed pretty obvious to me. Sure, it could also have been done with European gypsies, or maybe blacks in 1880s Alabama, but Encanto was rich with Latin culture (clothing, architecture, music) and made for a good setting, even if we never saw much of the country outside of one village. This, certainly, is NOT a film that would have worked being set in New York or London.

I liked that it had no true "villain," though there was one character suggested for the role (hiding in the bushes in the poster), before being passed to another, in a sense.

Mirabel's journey from family disappointment to family champion, mirrored in her own journey towards self-respect, worked well for me.

The film's not perfect, of course. The songs can be too rapid-fire, and several important moments in the film didn't feel as earned as they should have - too much telling us what characters were feeling, and not nearly enough showing us their interactions; but I was able to fill in the blanks well enough, even if another 5-10 minutes of runtime could have served the emotional plot better.

I think that Encanto rests comfortably with other recent pretty good-not-great Disney films. Not a classic, but one I'm sure to enjoy again.

[EricJ]

...But what about Bruno, can't we talk about him?

(I have never been so sick of hearing about a song I don't know from a Disney movie I haven't seen yet since "Hakuna Matata".)

[Farerb]

So are you a fan of Let it Go?

[James]

Fun article that mirrors my thoughts on the music: "I thought Encanto's songs were forgettable. So I went back to see what I was missing"

https://www.npr.org/2022/02/07/1078066682/encanto-songs

[Farerb]

Sometimes it's okay to say something is just overrated. As far as I can tell the movie and the music are popular mostly for people under 25 who use TikTok or twitter.

[Bill1978]

My first impression of the songs - which was via the soundtrack without any visuals to help - was they were just well polished Dora The Explorer song. I still stand by that opening for the opening and closing number. The 3 songs I enjoy the most are Waiting For A Miracle, We Don't Talk About Bruno and Dos Oruiguitos. Surface Pressure sounds like a Eurovision song and I always forget that the sister duet exists its so forgettable. Also not a fan of LMM's need to put in raps/fast speak singing into so many of the songs. A lot of lyrics are lost because of it.

Most of my issues with the songs now though stem from their presentation. They jsut aren't framed like true musical numbers and are presented more like music clips AND the characters being away that they are singing.

Having said all that if I can get through a day without some part of Don't Talk About Bruno it will be a miracle.