#328: Encanto

Release Date: November 26th, 2021

Format: Streaming (Disney+)

Written by: Jared Bush and Charise Castro Smith

Directed by: Jared Bush and Byron Howard

4 Stars

Since Walt Disney’s innovation of the feature-length animated film with 1938’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (#314), the company’s stock-in-trade has been the manufacture of magic. 

That’s no easy task. 

Back then, eighty-eight some odd years ago, the company turned to a dark, Germanic fairytale as a source of inspiration, full of fair beauty, shadowy forests, odd creatures, and powerful witchcraft. 

The film became an instant classic upon its release, a success beyond anything they could have imagined. 

It’s not an understatement to say that it could be the most influential film ever made. 

It was simply magic. 

But that was many years ago, when audiences were relatively naive to the tricks of the trade of filmmaking. Just a generation prior, people were known to duck behind the seat in front of them when they saw an onscreen train approaching, or a gun pointed at the camera lens. 

It was a simpler era, so it was inevitable that Disney would find it increasingly difficult to conjure up their signature magic as time wore on and as audiences matured.

This is what was on my mind as I started watching Encanto this morning, having watched Snow White just a few weeks ago. After all these years, I wondered, could Disney still  capture that elusive sense of magic? Is it possible?

I’m happy to report that, yes, Walt Disney Animation Studios can still deliver sweeping magic. Encanto is wonderfully magical. 

By the way, it’s interesting to note how different Encanto is in comparison to Snow White. 

Snow White gives you a foreboding, Germanic fairytale with a solitary princess lost in a dark forest; she seemingly has no real family or friends (at first); she is impenetrably pure and good, but otherworldly evil exists, and this external force represents the threat on her life.

Encanto, in contrast, gives you vibrant, Latin American magical realism with a regular girl living in the center of a busy town; she is surrounded at all times by family and friends; she is flawed and struggles with insecurities, and this internal force represents the threat on her life.           

Both films draw on universal themes and evocative cultural milieus, they’re just simply worlds apart. 

Both sure are beautiful though. I mean, how beautiful is Encanto? Visually, it’s like nothing I’ve ever seen before. The textures are magnificent: ceramic tiles, tropical flowers, sand and dirt and warm stucco, hair textures, brilliant and soulful eyes. Freeze the film at any moment and that frame will surely offer something beautiful.

But it’s the story that brought me to tears. Our protagonist, an imperfect and sensitive girl named Mirabel, must carefully navigate her emotions in order to get by day-to-day. She loves her big Columbian family, but she doesn’t have their special gifts. It’s this insecurity that puts her on edge around her abuela, the Madrigal matriarch who risked her life to save the family many years ago.

Doesn’t she owe it to her abuela, to her whole family, to never cause a problem? She’s not special, so isn’t it the least she could do? 

In the end, Encanto shows us that nobody is perfect, whether they are so-called gifted or not, and it’s the acceptance of our own flaws and the flaws of others that defines true love. 

The threat to our soul isn’t a witch in the forest, but the fear in our heart.