After all, co-director Adrian Molina is but one of the many Mexican-Americans working behind the scenes in what may well be Pixar’s most culturally specific movie in their lauded pantheon. Coco is as Mexican-American as films get. Some with an accent, others with nary a trace of it. Yes, the movie takes place in Mexico and characters like Gael’s Hector throw in a chamaco every now and then, but everyone mostly speaks English. In fact, that bilingual take on the film’s theme song was indicative of the kind of linguistic and cultural mix you experience when watching the American cut of this story about a boy who finds himself stranded in the Land of the Dead. And yes, like audiences below the border - where Coco has become the most successful film of all time – I wept by the time Miguel and Natalia LaFourcade’s rendition of “Remember Me” played over the credits. I found it charming, hilarious, and full of heart. I’d seen the movie, which boasts an impressive English voice cast that includes Gael García Bernal, Benjamin Bratt, and Edward James Olmos, back in New York a few weeks back. So it was with trepidation that I went in to see Pixar’s latest, Coco, in theaters while in Mexico. And, I had to admit, as my mom continues to argue to this day, Derbez’s “Burro” remains one of the best examples of what a capable performer can do when dubbing a foreign film for Latin American audiences. Spanish was, after all, my first language and there was no reason other than my own snobbery that prevented me from enjoying these films in translated form. Part of why I so hated watching these animated movies in their dubbed versions was obviously the fact that I was a spoiled brat. There was definitely some hissing, some whispered yelling, and eventually only some begrudging groaning. I couldn’t stay and watch this movie I’d heard so much about and have to listen to Eugenio Derbez as the donkey. One time when my mom, my siblings, and I set out to watch Shrek for our usual Sunday movie outing, it was only when the Dreamworks animated movie began that I found out there’d been a mix-up and we’d ended up at a screening of the dubbed version. Growing up in Bogotá, Colombia, there was nothing I hated more than watching an American film dubbed into Spanish.
0 kommentar(er)
