Although the trailer is full of Disney classic elements, the plot setting of “Encanto” is very similar to Pixar.
As the 60th work of Disney Animation, “Encanto” has the blessing of the gold medal team of “Zootopia”, so it has high hopes at the beginning of its production.
However, although the film wanted to try many ways to break Disney’s inherent routines, no matter the depth of the plot, or the emotional expression, “Encanto” did not have many highlights.
It is even suspected of being reduced to a large-scale cabaret show that purely shows off technology but has empty content.
The background of “Encanto” is set in Colombia, South America, where a mysterious family, Madrigal, lives in an unnamed town. Its family members are born with magic talents, and have been silently serving the town with their special abilities.
The protagonist Mirabel is a different kind of this family. She has never been able to magically since she was a child, and she has never been able to truly integrate into the whole family.
Although his grandmother and parents loved him, the cynicism of other relatives made Mirabe feel lonely.
Until an accident, Mirabel suddenly found a large number of cracks in the house, followed by the family members’ magic gradually disappearing.
In order to protect her family, Mirabel decided to embark on the path of finding the truth.
The “Encanto” setting is very interesting, completely different from the previous Disney style.
Generally speaking, Disney cartoons like to set the protagonist as an alien trapped in the ordinary world, such as “Beauty and the Beast” and “Frozen”.
But this film is just the opposite. Mirabel has become an ordinary person trapped in a heterogeneous world. This contrast brings a strong sense of freshness to the audience.
However, “Encanto” did not persist in this unconventional adventurous spirit.
When you watch the full movie, you will find that the breakthrough that the later film brings to the audience becomes less and less, so that it gradually slips into an ordinary family ethics drama.
At the beginning of the movie, the film created a lot of suspense. Such as why the magic was formed, the secret of the disappearance of Uncle Bruno, and the reason for the cracks in the house.
This kind of expression method of suppressing first and raising later makes it easy for the audience to have a desire for a closer look and attract them to continue watching.
However, it will also bring great disadvantages, that is, the later stage of the film needs to be enriched with enough matching wonderful content.
Once the front part and the end of the film are out of alignment, it is very easy to cause backlash.
The audience will feel that there is so much foreshadowing to show me these things, and the intuitive reaction of the psychological gap is to give the film a bad review.
In fact, “Encanto” handled it very well in the early stage.
The ability of each family member is extremely harmonious with their own temperament, which enriches the character’s character to the greatest extent.
The various dazzling skills are even more eye-opening, and the funny jokes and baggage inserted from time to time enrich the content of “Encanto” and make this part full of sight.
However, when the plot developed to a critical turning point and needed real effort, “Encanto” was like a frustrated ball, unable to exert any effort.
The two main themes of the movie are understanding and being yourself. For this reason, it compares the two roles of grandmother and Mirabel.
Among them, the grandmother represents the traditional conservative faction. She believes that only when family members are united can they exert their greatest strength.
Therefore, she took the initiative to choose a spouse for her children and grandchildren, so that they can operate according to the life track of her own imagination, and she does not hesitate to obliterate the expression of personality.
Mirabel is just the opposite. She respects the choices and development of individuals, is good at listening to the voice of each family member, and does her best to understand and tolerate, and repair the gaps between them.
The two ordinary people in the family who don’t know how to magic have chosen completely different ways of thinking. This difference makes family conflicts irreconcilable.
If “Encanto” can extend from this point and complete the deep excavation of the characters’ hearts, then the film’s ideological height will reach a new level.
It is a pity that Disney gave up the potential of the movie to be blackened. It used a large amount of singing and dancing and the warm dialogue between family members to bring “Encanto” back to the comfort zone that it considered the safest.
The source of family disasters is not external factors, but conflicts within the family.
The immortal candle that brings magic to the family was born from the sacrifice of grandfather and the indelible love for his wife and children.
But when this love becomes distorted, or even no longer a positive expression, magic loses its true meaning.
About what love is and how to care for it, Disney has used dozens of animated films to present it.
So that the audience now sees a subject like this, they will react like a conditioned reflex.
After all, colorful candies are delicious, but if you eat too much, they will still taste bad. For movies, the same principles apply.
At the same time, “Encanto” wasted a lot of time to lay out the communication and interaction between Mirabe and family members, which severely compressed the time of the later climax period, making the plot seem very hasty.
Especially after all the family members lost their magic, Mirabel rebuilt their home with the help of everyone, and all the family members recovered their magic in an instant.
This happy ending can certainly meet the needs of ordinary moviegoers, but it is completely contrary to the theme that the whole film wants to express.
The idea from the early stage of the movie is that magic does not bring happiness to people, but it becomes a burden. The purpose of magic is to protect the family and make the family more united.
After going through various changes, each family member has completed the process of finding themselves. At this time, magic has become no longer important.
Therefore, if you want to echo back and forth, the plot should turn everyone back into ordinary people and return to the original intention of the story, so that it can better reflect the true theme of the film.
In order to increase the visibility, “Encanto” designed a large number of singing and dancing performances, even taking up a lot of precious time.
For cartoons, singing and dancing are more like a double-edged sword. If used well, it can not only expand the connotation of the film, but also arouse the audience’s widespread resonance, and achieve a multiplier effect with half the effort.
However, once it is not handled properly, it is easy to lose sight of one another and destroy the overall structure of the film.
The plot of “Encanto” is relatively thin, and as a classic element of Disney, proper singing and dancing seems indispensable.
However, apart from being nice and beautiful, the song and dance of this film did not greatly promote the development of the plot.
On the contrary, because a large number of singing and dancing were added, the narrative rhythm of the film was severely damaged, and the unsatisfactory script was even worse.
Another negative effect brought by a large number of singing and dancing elements is that the character’s image is too pale.
Although the magic of each family member is gorgeous and the visual effects are outstanding, it conceals the human side of being an individual.
The most intuitive effect is that the characters have no memory points at all. The audience remembers that the auntie controls the weather at will, remembers the cousin’s infinite power, remembers that the cousin can communicate with animals, but they only fail to remember their thinking as human beings. one side.
As a result, these figures are like palettes made of large blocks of colors, beautiful as beautiful, but without soul.
There is also Uncle Bruno, who has always appeared as a hidden character in “Encanto”. In the early stage of “Encanto”, he spent a lot of time preparing his abilities and mystery.
But when the character uncovered the mystery and came to the audience, he found that the character did not play a big role in the overall advancement of the film.
This became another flaw in the film.
From a technical perspective, “Encanto” still represents the first-class level of today’s global animation industry.
Whether it is the details of the hair or the matching treatment of various backgrounds, you can feel the hard work of the creators.
However, just as hard work does not necessarily lead to rewards, hard work is also likely to fail to get things done.
A truly mature work must have a high degree of unity of ability and execution, otherwise it is very likely to become a representative of good eyes and low hands.
For Disney, in addition to making a good commercial return, filming cartoons can also further promote its brand value.
This commercial consideration makes Disney Animation always retract its feet easily after taking a step.
The overly conservative tone has allowed the company to continuously launch works that are very neat in all aspects, but rarely can it really shine.
“Encanto” cannot be said to be bad, it can only be said to be not good enough, which has become the biggest bottleneck of Disney animation today.
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