Walt Disney Studios released the trailer for its new animated film,
Encanto
, set in Colombia on
Thursday
.
The story follows the Madrigal family, who live in a place where everyone has superpowers except 15-year-old Mirabel, who struggles to find her role there.
According to the synopsis, when her family's magic is put in jeopardy, she must use
her ordinary gifts to save Encanto,
the town where they live.
Colombians in networks received this trailer with mixed feelings.
Some were excited, such as the user Karol Delgado who commented in the YouTube video that “I am proud to be Colombian and I am glad that Disney is making a film about our country”, or Alicia CM who commented that “I liked the little details and winks to our culture ”.
Others viewed it with more skepticism.
Memes, criticism and mockery
To contain all the complexity of an entire country in two minutes or two hours of an animated film, it was necessary to condense and mix regionalisms, biomes and thermal floors, which some have found amusing.
For others, the 'disneyification' of Colombia, this adulterated and sanitized version of the country, hides a reality far from magical, and with memes and montages they accommodated some of the scenes.
Others pointed out with humor that in fact
Encanto
was realistic, and showed, 'without wanting to', the permanent deterioration of the infrastructure, for example, or
the apathy of an anesthetized citizenry in the face of the misery and violence that persist in the country decade after decade.
To this, some responded by pointing to a truism:
Encanto
is a children's movie, "not a BBC documentary," Juliana Velasco joked on Twitter.
Mexicanization or the authentic Colombian?
Part of the online reaction focused on
whether the film seemed generically Mexican, a
complaint that Latinos in southern Guatemala have had against Hollywood for decades.
This from the dress of the protagonist, Mirabel, to the neutral Latin American dubbing, which for some seems Mexican.
A YouTube user, Andrés Zapata, commented that, although “as a Colombian I am excited about the trailer ... I am concerned that the Latin dubbing seems to be the one they always use, that, although it is very neutral, it still 'sounds' Mexican.
In Coco, Disney did use a 'more Mexican' dubbing for Latin America,
for Encanto they should have a 'more Colombian' dubbing with all the diversity of accents and expressions that we use ”.
Disney's & # 039; Frozen II & # 039 ;, breaks box office records in the first days of release
Nov. 25, 201900: 29
Perhaps the rest of the film will reveal a couple of purely Colombian terms or expressions, even if the accent is not, but a closer look reveals that there may be more of Colombia in the film than Disney is credited with.
Part of the cast of voices does
include Colombian actors with a long history in the country, such
as Angie Cepeda and María Cecilia Botero, as well as Diane Guerrero, of Colombian parents, Wilmer Valderrama (of Venezuelan father and Colombian mother).
Mirabel's voice is from Latin actress Stephanie Beatriz, who starred
in Lin-Manuel Miranda's
musical
In The Heights
(successful Broadway and Hollywood songwriter, singer, and actor).
"I am Colombian on my father's side, and playing this role fills me with immense pride," Beatriz said in a statement.
As for the clothing, the Mirabel dress, for example, is in fact the typical clothing of Santander, a department in the center-north of the country, according to local media, and several Colombians have emphasized this.
There are also the espadrilles
used by various communities inherited from indigenous tribes,
the ruana
(like the Mexican poncho) that is dressed in cold ground in the mountains of the capital and its surroundings, and
the famous vueltiao hat, typical of the Caribbean.
Mirabel's father also wears the so-called
guayabera, a
light-colored linen shirt for hot lands.
There is also the best known
Wayuu backpack,
of the indigenous people of La Guajira, in the northern tip.
The wax palm appears, the highest in the world and the national tree of Colombia, which grows in the forests of the cold Andean valleys, in the departments of Quindío, Caldas and Tolima.
There is also a character who has captivated more than one, the chigüiro, or capybara, the largest rodent in the world, in addition to the tapir, which lives in the north of the country.
It is also seen how the family prepares a typical Colombian breakfast in which arepas and coffee, or red, as it is known in the country, do not fail.
Among the characters you can catch allusions to, for example,
María Isabel Urrutia, who won gold at the 2000 Olympic Games in weightlifting,
in one of the characters whose superpower is a huge force.
In one of the children, whose best friend is a jaguar (who inhabits the Amazon, a third of the national territory), many see
Juan Guillermo Cuadrado, player of the National Soccer Team, as a child
(who also wears a typical red scarf in the neck, also known as raboegallo).
The music was composed not only by Miranda, but also Carlos Vives, a Colombian singer-songwriter and actor who popularized typical genres such as vallenato, wrote an original song for the film, titled
Colombia, Mi Encanto.
Vives, who is from Santa Marta, said in a statement: “This song is a celebration of the magical diversity of Colombia.
... I can't wait to see how the music will blend with the images and
characters inspired by the charm of Colombians. "
And of course, a tribute to the great Colombian writer (no, not Diomedes Díaz, the Vallenato singer) could not be missed: the yellow butterflies from One Hundred Years of Solitude, the masterpiece of the Colombian Nobel Prize winner Gabriel García Márquez.
The plot for many is a nod to that export for which Colombia is known around the world (no, not that one):
magical realism.
For some Colombians it is a source of pride, and for others, a reminder that perhaps many, Colombians or not, are like Mirabel, ordinary.
Encanto
will hit theaters on November 24, 2021.