Blessie Bruce STEM 202 Activity 4

Coco (2017)

The concept for Coco is inspired by the Mexican Day of the Dead holiday. Since it is the season
wherein Halloween themed are starting to be prevalent, I have decided to watch and review this
movie. This is the second time that I have watched this film, and to be honest I am glad that I have
chosen to watch this once again as I almost always only focus on the details of a story/movie once I
have watched it the second time around. Do this reflection/ review paper is a great opportunity for me
to pay attention to detail and to ground myself and actually focus and be constant in my efforts to pay
attention.
Now, the plot is a simple one but I will give as much details as I can remember and as much as the
Internet can provide me. In Santa Cecilia, Mexico, Miguel dreams of becoming a musician, even
though his family strictly forbids it. It was as if his whole family swore off an oath to never play an
instrument or make music ever again. His great-great-grandmother Imelda was married to a man who
left her and their daughter Coco to pursue a career in music, and when he never returned, Imelda
banished music from her family’s life and started a shoemaking business. Given that it’s already the
first few minutes of the story, I was intrigued as to what Imelda might have felt by the time that she
was left by her husband. And she was with an already-growing too. I guess it just made me think
about whether the father figure might have regretted his choice of pursuing his career instead of
choosing his career.

Miguel now lives with the elderly Coco and their family, who are all shoemakers, since Imelda has
seemed to have sworn off. He idolizes Ernesto de la Cruz, and secretly teaches himself to play guitar
from Ernesto’s old films. On the Day of the Dead, Miguel accidentally damages the picture frame
holding a photo of Coco with her mother on the family ofrenda and discovers a hidden section of the
photograph showing his great-great-grandfather holding Ernesto’s famous guitar.

Concluding that Ernesto is his great-great-grandfather because of the picture and the guitar, Miguel
ignores his family’s objections and leaves to enter a talent show for Day of the Dead. He breaks into
Ernesto’s mausoleum and takes his guitar to use in the show. As his family has sworn off all things
related to music, I guess he felt like that was his only choice. I think he thought that it was within his
rights as he believed that Ernesto is his great-great-grandfather but once he strums it, he becomes
invisible to everyone in the village plaza. However, he can interact with his skeletal dead relatives,
who are visiting from the Land of the Dead for the holiday. Following the build-up of the story and
the seemingly-obvious plot line, I guessed rightly that he would be able to see and interact with his
long-since-died relatives. Taking him back with them, they learn Imelda cannot visit because Miguel
accidentally removed her photo from the ofrenda. Miguel discovers he is cursed for stealing from the
dead, and must return to the Land of the Living before sunrise or he will become one of the dead; to
do so, he must receive a blessing from a member of his family. Imelda offers Miguel a blessing, but
on the condition that he abandon his musical pursuits. Miguel refuses and attempts to seek Ernesto’s
blessing instead. He escapes his dead relatives and manages to make his way around the Land of the
Dead, and everything must have been confusing and reality must have felt altered to him.
Miguel meets Héctor, who declares he knows Ernesto and offers to help Miguel reach him in return
for Miguel taking his photo back with him, so that he might visit his daughter before she forgets him
and he disappears completely. By this time, Miguel has seen the consequences of people forgetting
their dead relatives, and although unstated, it seemed as though he did jot want that to happen to
Héctor as well.He helps Miguel enter a talent competition to win entry to Ernesto’s mansion, but
Miguel’s family tracks him down, forcing him to flee. Miguel sneaks into the mansion, where Ernesto
welcomes him as his descendant, but Héctor confronts them, again imploring Miguel to take his photo
to the Land of the Living. Ernesto and Héctor renew an argument from their partnership in life, and
Miguel realizes that when Héctor decided to leave the duo to return to his family, Ernesto poisoned
him, then stole his guitar and songs, passing them off as his own to become famous. When this
revelation was showcased in the film, I can feel the way Miguel must have been hurting. He went on
this journey and has braved challenges only to find out that almost everything was a lie. He just
wanted to pursue his dreams, he just wanted to sing and be a musician, but it felt a lot like his dreams
were all crushed.

To protect his legacy, Ernesto seizes the photo and has his security guards throw Miguel and Héctor
into a cenote pit. There, Miguel realizes Héctor is his real great-great-grandfather, and Coco is
Héctor’s daughter. After Imelda and the family rescue the duo, Miguel reveals the truth about
Héctor’s death. Imelda and Héctor reconcile, and the family infiltrates Ernesto’s concert to retrieve
Héctor’s photo. Ernesto’s crimes are exposed to the audience, who jeer him as he is thrown out of the
stadium and crushed by a giant bell; in the chaos, however, Héctor’s photograph is lost.

As the sun rises, Coco’s life and memory are fading; Imelda and Héctor bless Miguel so that he can
return to the Land of the Living. After Miguel plays “Remember Me”, a song Héctor originally wrote
as a lullaby, Coco brightens and sings along with Miguel. At this moment, I felt likecoco has
remembered her father even if it was just for a bit. When they finished the song, I think Coco must
have remembered Héctor fully. She reveals she had saved the torn-off piece of the family photo and
tells her family stories about her father, thus consequently avingg his memory and his existence in the
Land of the Dead. Miguel’s family reconciles with him and ends the ban on music.

One year later, Miguel presents the family ofrenda, which now includes the deceased Coco, to his new
baby sister. Coco’s letters from Héctor prove Ernesto stole his songs, destroying Ernesto’s legacy and
making Héctor be rightfully honored in his place. In the Land of the Dead, Héctor and Imelda rekindle
their romance and join Coco for a visit to the living, where Miguel sings and plays for his relatives,
both living and dead.

This movie is such a wholesome and good kind of family movie that I can’t even seem to think of a
bad thing. The whole journey of the lead character was inspiring. Although with a fictitious mix, the
general idea of the plot wasn’t too grandiose to be believable. These types of movies are those that I
love the most because they keep the hope going. They keep making these messages that with the right
amount of courage and fate in those that surrounds you, whether physically or spiritually you can
achieve and continue doing your best to fulfill your dreams.