“Well, when you go out to a movie as a family, you want it to be an outing like going to a great restaurant,“ Guilermo del Toro recently declared of his new animation feature, The Book of Life.
“And you go Chinese food, you go Italian food, you go Greek food. I think this is the biggest and most amazing Mexican meal we can offer the world, audio/visually, you know.”
Well, if it is, what a disappointment then. What an insult to Mexican culture to try and palm off as genuine, something wrapped up in the smug comfort blanket of another Hollywood rent-a celebrity-voice production.
Can it ever really be ‘an amazing Mexican meal’ with snatches of songs like Radiohead’s Creep, and Mumford & Son’s I Will Wait on the soundtrack, along with a clatter of treacly boy-band type efforts sung in English? I don’t think so.
At least it is timely that it appears as Hallow’een beckons, dealing as it does ostensibly with the Mexican Dia de Muertos/Day of the Dead celebrations which are traditionally celebrated on October 31, November 1 and November 2.
Nevertheless, the story is charming enough. Manolo Sanchez is proving a disappointment to his macho family - who have produced a long line of bull-fighters - because of his devotion to his guitar. Joaquin is a more alpha male sort but he lacks Manolo’s gentle charm. The lads fight for the hand of Maria, who is duly despatched off to a convent in Spain for a few years to cool her giddy heels.
When she returns, the little chaps are now young men and the competition between them for the hand of Maria hots up intensely. The action takes the characters on to supernatural worlds i.e.The Land of the Remembered, The Land of the Forgotten, the Cave of Souls. Back home, there are enemies at the village gates also, weird threatening creatures, which perhaps only Joaquin can deal with.
The artwork is simply awesome, an endless kaleidoscopic of the imagination - one thinks in particular of the causeway across a lake, lit by an endless trail of candles.Then the change of action to the supernatural worlds sees the screen saturated in a colour explosion, as the action shifts between vertiginous heights and spatial chasms. The 3D effects are so cool that, yes, you do think that that sword is coming right for you.
But sadly, The Book of Life tails off with a rather dull, and far too extended battle scene during which I suspect the kids may begin to yawn. Still, despite my early reservations, it's kind of worth it, if you want to bring the young 'uns. But just think for a minute about how you feel about stage Oirish and then think about Mexico.
Paddy Kehoe
