Image: Twentieth Century Fox
'The Book of Life'
Abusload of spitball slinging schoolchildren are unloaded at a museum, expecting to spend the day menacing the world around them. However, they are greeted by Mary Beth, a quick-witted tour guide who seems knowledgeable in dealing with mischievous tricksters.
Image: Twentieth Century Fox
'The Book of Life'
Grabbing their attention with an optical illusion that leads to a secret passageway, Mary Beth leads the children to an obscure room where she introduces them to a mysterious book. It’s the “Book of Life,” she tells them, and it contains all of the world’s stories. Inviting them into a particular story, Mary Beth begins reading about San Angel, a Mexican town brimming with myths and traditions. Family histories are reestablished with each generation, for instance, through participation in the Day of the Dead and bullfighting.
So Jorge Gutierrez’s The Book of Life begins when a group of children are enticed by the power of story. The central story unfolding in San Angel is being read aloud as one story among the world’s many.
Mary Beth begins her story three kids and two gods. The three young children—guitar strumming Manolo, bold and fake-mustache wearing Joaquin, and independent-minded MarÃa—rollick together about town, each filled with dreams that are like expectations for how his or her story might transpire. They look like wooden puppets—or figurines that Mary Beth can use to visually represent the story to the captivated children.
Manolo’s conflict is that he inherits a family tradition of bullfighting, but he prefers playing his guitar and, though talented at sidestepping charging bulls, doesn’t like the tradition of animal slaughter bound up with the sport’s expectations. Joaquin longs for adventures in which he may prove himself a worthy hero, particularly after the death of his father, a soldier who died at the hands of the thieving beast, Chakal. MarÃa’s spirited instinct and counter-cultural sympathies are at odds with her father General Posada’s more overbearing tendencies.
Image: Twentieth Century Fox
'The Book of Life'
The main conflict amongst the children, though, is that both Manolo and Joaquin are (even at this young age) in love with MarÃa. They vie for her attention by trying to impress her enough to win her affection.
And this is where the two gods become especially invested.
La Muerte (Spanish for “death”) presides over the Land of the Remembered, where she is honored among the spirits who live on so long as their loved ones preserve them in memories. With long, witch-black hair, La Muerte wears an overlarge sombrero decorated with dangling skulls intermixed with candles lighting the darkness. Xibalba (“place of fear”) is sovereign over the Land of the Forgotten, populated with souls disintegrating due to their absence amidst the memories of the living. Wielding a snake scepter, Xibalba is dark-winged and skeletal, a trickster with a darker appearance than La Muerte.
The “remembered” lived in a land of celebration, while the forgotten barely exist in an underworld of fear, and these descriptions of the lands characterize their rulers. La Muerte is more protective and giving when compared to Xibalba’s meddlesome deceit.
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