ENCANTO

 

Publicity poster for Encanto (© Jared Bush/Byron Howard/Walt Disney Pictures/Walt Disney Animation Studios/Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

On 24 October 2022, I watched the Disney animated musical Encanto (officially this studio's 60th animated feature, discounting collaborations, Pixars, etc), and it certainly lived up to its title – thoroughly enchanting!

Directed by Jared Bush and Byron Howard, and released in 2021 by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, Encanto is all about a community inhabiting an enchanted Colombian town, Encanto, having been saved from attackers 50 years ago by a miraculous candle that continues to burn there and emanate magic.

Every member of Encanto's founder family, the Madrigals, has a magical gift (talking to animals, shape-shifting, sprouting flowers everywhere, immense physical strength, incredibly sharp hearing, etc), and even their house is sentient. But then along comes Mirabel Madrigal (voiced by Stephanie Beatriz), their loveable, goofy, always-ready-to-help teenage daughter, who turns out to everyone's great surprise to be seemingly bereft of magic.

Added to that is the frightening realisation that their house is beginning to crack up – literally! – their magic is failing inexplicably, and even the light from the miraculous candle is flickering. And then there is denigrated Uncle Bruno (John Leguizamo) – "We don't talk about Bruno", to quote the title of this movie's worldwide smash hit song (click here to view its official music video on YouTube) – who is shunned by the rest of the Madrigal family and the community for his disturbing visions of the future.

But can Bruno the outcast and Mirabel the unmagical successfully pool what abilities they do possess in order to discover why the magic is waning and save their realm from destruction?

Along the way there are some superb songs by Hamilton composer Lin-Manuel Miranda, a rich diversity of zoogeographically-correct animals accurately depicted, and not so much a feast as a full-blown fiesta for the eyes. If I had to describe Encanto in a single word, that word would unquestionably be 'colourful'. Wow, is it COLOURFUL!!!!

Hues and tints and shades of every possible wavelength, plus a fair few impossible ones too, I wager, hit the screen in a polychromatic explosion – a vibrant palette of unimaginable, spellbinding beauty, ranging from pastel to psychedelic and beyond any spectrum of visible light known to science!! Absolutely dazzling but in a good way, the way that all animated movies should be, if only they would stop lazily apeing live-action and go off instead in dramatic, unrestrained directions that only animation can attain, and which is surely therefore the whole purpose of animated productions anyway.

Staying with the subject of colour: in a particularly memorable scene near the end of the film, Mirabel and her grandmother Alma are standing in a multicoloured river. When I watched that scene, I assumed that this was merely a magical way of portraying it, but I later learned that there really is a multicoloured river in Colombia. Named the Caño Cristales, and commonly dubbed the Liquid Rainbow, during a brief spell between the wet and dry seasons it exhibits a multitude of hues, including bright yellow and green from its sand, and blue from its water, but especially brilliant reds, these latter deriving from Macarenia clavigera, a colourful species of riverweed present on the riverbed. Interestingly, the Caño Cristales's very existence was only made known as recently as 1969, when some cattle farmers chanced upon it, and it is officially protected from disturbance, with only a limited number of sightseers being permitted to visit this beautiful river in a year.

My one and only quibble with Encanto is that, perhaps being a Brit, I had trouble understanding some of the predominantly Latin American heritage voice cast here and there, but otherwise I totally loved this film! Indeed, along with Strange World (reviewed by me here) and Luca, Encanto is one of my favourite modern-day Disney animated movies. And guess what, none of these is a live-action/CGI remake of one of its earlier classic animated films. There's something to be said for originality over facsimile.

Moreover, in March 2022 Encanto won an Academy Award for Best Animated Feature of 2021, beating not only two fellow Disney movies, Raya and the Last Dragon (reviewed by me here) and Luca, but also The Mitchells Vs The Machines (reviewed by me here) and Flee, as well as winning a BAFTA that same year for Best Animated Film, plus a raft of more than 40 other awards too.

If you have a pair of sunglasses to hand in order to shield your eyes from the glare, be sure to click here to watch a thrilling, rainbow-resplendent official trailer for Encanto on YouTube.

To view a complete chronological listing of all of my Shuker In MovieLand blog's other film reviews and articles (each one instantly accessible via a direct clickable link), please click HERE, and please click HERE to view a complete fully-clickable alphabetical listing of them.

 

A second publicity poster for Encanto (© Jared Bush/Byron Howard/Walt Disney Pictures/Walt Disney Animation Studios/Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

 

MARY POPPINS RETURNS

Publicity poster for Mary Poppins Returns (© Rob Marshall/Walt Disney Pictures/Lucamar Productions/Marc Platt Productions/Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

It doesn't seem two years since this was THE Christmas movie release that everyone was flocking to see at their local cinemas here in the UK – those same cinemas that this Christmas are for the most part locked down, about to be locked down, or permanently closed down, due to an invisible yet highly inimical invader that continues to threaten so much that our species has held dear for countless ages. Let us hope that 2021 will herald an eventual end to our trials at its heinous hands – or, to be virologically precise, its spikes – and that we can finally return, with much gratitude and new appreciation, to the life and freedoms that for so very long we had all taken so very much for granted.

Throughout his life, Walt Disney was well known for vehemently refusing to produce sequels to any of his classic movies, and by and large his reluctance to do so has been fully vindicated. Many such sequels have been produced by the Disney Studio since Walt's passing in December 1966, but ALMOST without exception they have been only pale shadows and empty imitations of their timeless originals.

Note, however, that I stress the word 'almost' – because after deciding to wait out Christmas 2018 due to the huge demand to see it, on 11 January 2019 I was finally fortunate enough to view on the big screen a glorious, truly exceptional exception to that trend. In fact, to quote a very appropriate aphorism - it was practically perfect in every way.

I refer, of course, to Mary Poppins Returns, directed by Rob Marshall, with Emily Blunt taking on the title role of P.L. Travers's magical nanny originally played so memorably by Julie Andrews over 55 years ago now, way back in 1964, but executing it with entirely comparable panache and verve. Instead of Bert the friendly chimney-sweep and pavement artist played by one of the world's greatest comedians but worst Cockney speakers Dick Van Dyke, we now have Jack the lamplighter, played by American actor Lin-Manuel Miranda, also famous as the creator and star of the hit musical Hamilton.

And not only actors and actresses but time too has moved on in Cherry Tree Lane, because the Banks children, Jane and Michael, are all grown up now. Moreover, Michael (Ben Whishaw) is recently widowed, and despite the best attempts of his caring sister Jane (Emily Mortimer) to help him, he is seriously struggling to look after his three children and keep their home from the clutches of the bank, which in the form of corrupt chairman William 'Weatherall' Wilkins (Colin Firth) is only too eager to repossess it during the Great Slump. Consequently, when Mary Poppins makes her very unexpected but most welcome return into the lives of Michael and Jane, and informs them that she is here to look after the children, don't necessarily assume that the children she is alluding to are those of Michael...

Although it is technically a sequel, Mary Poppins Returns is much more of a homage to the original classic. For although the storylines in the two films are different, many of the original's most beloved musical/animated set pieces are reimagined in the new film, in the form of a series of very entertaining pastiches, containing new songs by Marc Shaiman (music) and Scott Whittman (lyrics) that I feel hold their own even against the immortal classics penned by the Sherman Brothers (Richard and Robert) for the original.

So: instead of 'Chim Chim Cher-ee' and dancing chimney-sweeps, we have 'Trip A Little Light Fantastic' and dancing lamplighters. Instead of Mary and Bert dancing with cartoon penguins and other animals in 'Jolly Holiday', we have Mary and Jack dancing with cartoon penguins and other animals in 'The Royal Doulton Music Hall'. Instead of 'I Love To Laugh' while floating beneath the ceiling, we have 'Turning Turtle' while inside a shop where everything is upside-down. And instead of the comforting 'Stay Awake' lullaby and the affecting 'Feed the Birds', we have those two different but equally atmospheric scenes and songs deftly blended to inspire those containing the deeply moving song 'The Place Where Lost Things Go' (which was nominated for the Best Original Song Oscar at the 2019 Academy Awards ceremony, one of four Oscars for which Mary Poppins Returns was nominated). However, these new scenes and songs stand on their own merits too; they are far more than merely derivatives of their original inspirations.

Last but certainly not least, very substantial support for this movie's afore-mentioned main stars is provided by the eminent likes of Meryl Streep (as Topsy, Mary Poppins's decidedly eccentric East European cousin), Angela Lansbury (the Balloon Lady, serving as a counterpart of sorts to the original movie's Bird Woman), Julie Walters (Ellen, the Banks family's longstanding – and long-suffering – housekeeper, played in the original by Hermione Baddeley), Lin-Manuel Miranda of Hamilton fame (as Bert the pavement artist and chimney sweep, played in the original by Dick Van Dyke), and a returning, extraordinarily sprightly 93-year-old Dick Van Dyke himself no less, this time playing Mr Dawes Jr, the retired but still all-powerful (and desktop-dancing!) bank supremo who puts a very decisive stop to his nasty nephew Weatherall's nefarious schemes against the beleaguered Michael and family. There is also a brief cameo from Karen Dotrice, who played Jane as a child in the original.

Filling the screen with vibrant colour, a splendiferous mix of traditional but first-rate 2-D and current state-of-the-art CGI special effects, instantly hummable songs, breathtaking dance sequences, and a veritable galaxy of big-name stars, Mary Poppins Returns is in my opinion one of the best and most enchanting Disney films of all time - and bearing in mind this studio's glittering catalogue of all-time classics, that is no mean feat.

In other words, Mary Poppins Returns is an absolute joy in every sense, as well as for everyone who still retains the magic of childhood and the power of dreams in their heart – something that we all need more than ever right now, to see us through our current troubled times. So please click here to view a dazzling official trailer for this delightful movie, and allow yourself to be transported into the wonderful world of imagination that Walt Disney Studios' incomparable output has so profoundly and positively influenced for almost a century. Long may it continue to do so.

And to view a complete listing of all of my Shuker In MovieLand blog's other film reviews and articles (each one instantly accessible via a direct clickable link), please click HERE!