Hacker Cinema
The Book of Life
2014 · Film · 95 min
Directed by Jorge R. Gutierrez
The journey of Manolo, a young man who is torn between fulfilling the expectations of his family and following his heart. Before choosing which path to follow, he embarks on an incredible adventure that spans fantastical worlds where he must face his greatest fears.
2 positive1 neutralfrom 3 commenters
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3 comments on Hacker News
We like both in our house but have to agree that Book of Life is the better movie.
Though if you watch Coco I think you should also watch Book of Life. Book of Life got somewhat ignored in the box office because it wasn't Pixar, but of the two had far more Mexican/Mexican-American creative talent involved behind the scenes (not that I'm accusing Pixar of appropriation, but there are some questions to be had there if you are feeling cynical), tells the more complete cultural story, and I think is very much the better movie.
OT: If anyone here is up on Mexican folklore, I've got a question about "Coco" and "The Book of Life". They both are built around the Day of the Dead holiday, so of course are going to have certain similarities.
The stories they tell though are massively different, and they have quite different takes on what the land of the dead is like. For the most part the similarities are mostly what naturally comes from focusing on the same holiday.
Except for one. Both of them feature a boy who wants to be a musician but grows up in a family that has a traditional family business and strongly disapproves of their kids becoming musicians.
I'm wondering if that was just a coincidence, or if "kids wants to be musician, family disapproves" is a theme from Mexican folklore or something like that that both films happened to use.