Spanish (page 9)

Beginners’ Spanish I (SPAN 201): Watching a Movie

Brennan Fishler

For this assignment I decided to rewatch a movie I really enjoyed when I was younger, it was the Book Of Life, An american Animated movie from 2014 (Book Of Life).

The movie is an insight into the dia de los muertos (November 2nd) where we get to see Mexican ideologies of life and death. This movie is very rich in Mexican folklore but has some made up characters for the sake of entertainment. La muerte is the representation of life in this movie. La muerte is a woman who is made of sugar and in an elaborate dress. Her inspiration from mexican culture is that she is based off of Calavera Catrina who is a figure created to mock people of mexican culture who were obsessed with european culture. She is made of sugar which is a reference to the sugar skulls used on the altars of the dead. There is also the land of the remembered and the land of the forgotten. These two are places in Mexican culture where the dead go. As time passes the dead who get forgotten are brought to the land of the forgotten. Something I found when watching this movie in Spanish this time is the way words are translated. The words that were said were “especially in the face” which directly translates too “especialmente en la cara” but in the Spanish version the characters said “sobre todo en la cara!”. The words are completely different yet they can both be used to say the same thing, which outlines the difference between the Spanish language and the English language.