journal features

movie review - Book of Life

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-seven years and one million words

Toronto, 2015.07.02

This is an engaging animated movie set in Mexico -- and its after-life. A bet is made between two gods into which of two young men will marry the woman they're both interested in. One of the gods puts his finger on the scale in order to win the bet, and our hero is slain in order for the god's choice to win. But then our man turns up in the after-life and begins making trouble. The plot takes us to both the Land of the Remembered and the Land of the Forgotten; one is dreary dark and cold, the other bursting with life. Meanwhile, back on Earth there is trouble as well, as the home town of our hero is under threat.

I liked the animation style, which is blocky and colorful and fun. The story is good, the characters are true, and the mix of purpose and adventure is very well balanced. The Boy, at aged seven, seemed to dig it as well.

Strongly recommended.

rand()m quote

Society is indeed a contract... [the state] is a partnership in all science; a partnership in all art; a partnership in every virtue, and in all perfection. As the ends of such a partnership cannot be obtained in many generations, it becomes a partnership not only between those who are living, but between those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are to be born.

—Edmund Burke