In their decades of filmmaking, animation studio Pixar has mastered the art of crafting funny yet emotional movies and it’s not unusual for their films to have grown-ups shedding a tear.
While heart-wrenching moments are sometimes the focal points of Pixar films - yes, we mean the opening sequence of ‘Up’ - it’s often in the background that some of the most poignant lessons are taught.
In the newly-released ‘Coco’, there’s one detail that will have you welling up as soon as you spot it.
The movie sees 12-year-old Miguel become trapped in the Land of the Dead, where he’s surrounded by the skeletons of his ancestors, and even some of Mexico’s greatest celebrities and visionaries.
Focusing on the Mexican festival Dia de Muertos, Coco’s world is one where people continue living in the Land of the Dead after they die. Crucially, their afterlife skeletons are the same age as the person was when they died.
This means that the Land of the Dead is mostly populated with older people.
However, as a handful of eagle-eyed viewers might have noticed, there’s one scene where a mother tells her child not to stare at Miguel. The fact he’s in the afterlife must mean that he died while he was still a child.
We’re not ashamed to admit shedding a tear as soon as we realised this.
Upon its release in the States last year, ‘Coco’ was praised for the way it tackles death, with the New York Times writing: “In Pixar’s latest, there is no escaping death”.
The film was well-received in Mexico and is already the country’s highest-grossing movie of all-time.