“Coco” Respect for the overflowing Mexican culture!

Gael García Bernal's journey overlaps with Hector's border crossing

Now, on November 1st and 2nd, the Day of the Dead, the young Miguel gets lost in the Land of the Dead and meets Hector, a lonely skeleton who wants to cross over to the Land of the Living on the Day of the Dead. In the Land of the Dead, if the descendants do not enshrine the photo on the altar and forget its existence, it is destined to disappear from the Land of the Dead. Hector wants to see his family left behind in the Land of the Living. Therefore, Hector, who wants his photo to be brought back to the Land of the Living, follows Miguel around and helps him search for his great-grandfather.

However, if Miguel himself does not return to the land of the living before the Day of the Dead, he will never be able to return to his family. Both Miguel and Hector have time limits, but as time passes, Miguel's body becomes more and more skeletal. According to director Lee Unkrich, this is a homage to the famous time limit movie " Back to the Future " and Hayao Miyazaki's "Spirited Away," in which a 10-year-old girl gets lost in a mysterious land and works at a public bath where eight million gods visit.

“Coco” (C) 2018 Disney/Pixar. All Rights Reserved. (C) 2018 Disney. All Rights Reserved.

As the story progresses, the wandering musician Hector becomes a larger presence, and is shown struggling and in pain as he tries to cross the bridge from the land of the dead to the land of the living.

Gael Garcia Bernal, who plays Hector, also moved from Mexico to London, where he mastered the basics of acting before moving to Hollywood. It is interesting to see how his path so far overlaps with Hector's.

Both of his parents are actors, and Gael, who has been active since he was a child actor, traveled around Europe at the age of 17. At the age of 19, he became the first Mexican to be accepted into a famous British drama school (now one of the colleges of the University of London), which has produced many famous actors such as Judi Dench, Vanessa and Lynn Redgrave, and Katherine Scott Thomas.

In 2000, he played a young man in a confused Mexico City with an uncertain future in Amores Perros , directed by fellow Mexican director Alejandro González Iñárritu. He quickly gained international fame. In 2001, he teamed up with director Alfonso Cuarón, who would later be selected for an international series with Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban , in Heaven's Mouth . He also worked with Brazilian director Walter Sals on The Motorcycle Diaries (2005), based on Che Guevara's travelogue of South America when he was a medical student, and solidified his position as an international actor through his work with directors from his native Mexico and South America. He is one of the leading South American actors, a symbol of the "crossing of borders" advocated by Coco.

“Coco” (C) 2018 Disney/Pixar. All Rights Reserved. (C) 2018 Disney. All Rights Reserved.

At the same time, Inarritu, who teamed up with Gael, won the Academy Award for Best Picture and Best Director for Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) in 2014, and again for Best Director for The Revenant in 2015, while Cuarón won a major Academy Award in 2013 for Gravity , and they are now the backbone of not only Mexican but also American cinema.

Gael is also vocal about Mexico's current situation and political corruption. For example, in January 2018, he shot a film about young people who get caught up in crime in the San Gregorio Atrapulco (hereinafter San Gregorio) district of Xochimilco, in the south of Mexico City, which was severely damaged in the 2017 earthquake. At the same time, he announced that the documentary film festival Ambulante, which he is involved in running, will use 285 million Mexican pesos in donations from around the world to build houses in areas affected by the earthquake. In March, he attended the United Nations Human Rights Council and made a speech calling for the Council's intervention, claiming that "crimes" are being committed and overlooked in Mexico in the name of maintaining public order and combating drug trafficking (this video can be viewed at (C) AFP ).

Not only has Gael tried his hand at acting, he has also tried his hand at directing films, and was cast in both the Spanish and English versions of "Coco." However, this perfect man also has a weakness, which was revealed at the Academy Awards ceremony. While the nominees for Best Original Song were singing, Gael's live singing was quite unstable, upsetting netizens and leading to numerous lamentations around the world, such as "His acting and face are great, but..." Gael himself said that when he found out about the nomination, he was upset at the thought of having to sing in front of everyone, so please don't blame him too much.

Why is the original title named after the most silent and plain character?