#coco analysis

I feel like a lot of people gloss over Héctor's flaws a bit— largely, I suspect, because he is nowhere near the most flawed character in this masterpiece, and so the flaws he does have pale in comparison to Ernesto, or even Imelda— but he does have them, and they are pretty crucial to the plot.

Firstly, he can be pretty irresponsible.

I mean, the whole reason he's with Miguel is because his reaction to finding a lost living child was "well, better spend all night coming up with zany schemes to get this kid to Ernesto" not "well, better report this kid to the relevant authorities, who will then be able to contact Ernesto and solve this whole mess".

I mean, one could argue that since Héctor has a rather complicated relationship with the authorities at this point, he doesn't necessarily trust them to help him, but then he's perfectly willing to take Miguel in after the announcement at the Battle of the Bands. It seems more likely that it just never occured to him.

Another example is his attitude to other people's belongings.

He borrows things from people— including apparently their bones (though, honestly, that one is on Chicharrón. After the mini-fridge, the van, the napkins etc. he really should have noticed that there was a pattern going on here)— and doesn't give them back.

Most people seem to assume that these were all confiscated at the bridge, like the dress, and a lot of them probably were. But then look at how he loses the second dress.

He comes in right as Ernesto is trying to send Miguel home and then when Ernesto doesn't recognise him he pulls the costume off, revealing his normal clothes— and tossing the dress and all the accessories aside.

He doesn't even look to see where they land. Which is, I suppose, understandable— he's kind of going through a lot right now— but it shows that he's not exactly careful with the things he borrows.

Héctor's irresponsibility sort of leads into our second, bigger flaw: it is fairly easy to talk Héctor into doing something he's uncomfortable or unsure about. The most obvious example being leaving his family.

Now, we never get explicitly told that Héctor was talked into going on tour, but it's pretty heavily implied.

The lyrics to 'Remember Me'— "though I have to say goodbye", "though I have to travel far", "know that I'm with you the only way that I can be"— suggest that he didn't feel like he had a choice about going, and then he outright tells Ernesto that gaining fame and fortune was "your dream, not mine".

This certainly gives the impression that Héctor was maybe less on board with leaving home than Ernesto was, but got persuaded to do so anyway. His fatal flaw is essentially not standing up for himself and what he thinks is the right thing to do.

And what I find interesting about this is that Héctor does not change in this regard.

At the battle of the bands, when Héctor finds out that Miguel isn't a professional musician, he is clearly visibly uncomfortable with the idea of letting him perform.

Which is absolutely the right reaction, considering that this is a life and death competition (for him and Miguel) and he has no idea what Miguel's definition of musician is, apart from the fact that it apparently doesn't include performing in public.

For all he knows, the kid's only just into his second week of guitar lessons.

His first instinct, to go on instead (and can we all just acknowledge the sacrifice he was willing to make in going on stage under the name 'De la Cruzito'?) is actually the sensible and responsible thing to do, yet all Miguel has to do is to say that he wants to earn Ernesto's blessing and suddenly Héctor's fine with it. Even after learning that the kid has never even done a grito before.

In nearly a century, he has not managed to sort out this flaw in his character.

Which I find really sad, since I personally headcanon that the decision to go home should have been a huge character changing moment for Héctor.

This is the moment where he finally realises that he can't just let Ernesto push him around anymore, because he has a family now and he has to stand up for them as well as well as himself. Like, there is an alternate universe where Ernesto doesn't poison Héctor and this is the moment where he grows up and becomes a more responsible person and stops letting people walk all over him.

But instead, he dies and is immediately cut off from everybody he knows and thrust into an environment where he has no real responsibilities and is desperate enough to let people talk him into anything if it means he might stand a chance of getting over the bridge.

Can we stop and appreciate for a moment what a comedy of errors this whole thing was? I mean Miguel was only a name or a stray glance away from the truth the entire night. 

First, in the DoFR office, the clerk explains that Miguel is cursed because he stole the guitar, then follows that up with "Because it's a family matter, you need your family's blessing." Meaning that, somewhere buried in that paperwork it was recognized that the guitar belonged to Miguel's blood relative, Hector Rivera. Miguel assumes the clerk is referring to De la Cruz, and Imelda is too concerned about returning her grandson (and her photo) safely to the land of the living to wonder how he'd acquired her husband's guitar.

Next, when Miguel realizes that he could technically get his great-great-grandfather's blessing, he doesn't say anything out loud--which is unsurprising, but if he'd tried suggesting it first, it would have taken exactly two seconds for Imelda to shoot down the idea that she was in any way related to De la Cruz.

Two minutes later Miguel meets Hector and had either of them thought to include their last names in the introduction it would have ended right then and there. Miguel is still a kid, so I feel like it makes sense that he'd just use his given name, but Hector... hmm. Guess he doesn't see himself as part of a family at that point oh no I made it sad whoops moving on

Imelda comes storming down the stairs and if she'd seen/recognized Hector in the two seconds before Miguel dragged him out the door--or if he'd seen her--that would have brought everything to a halt. They missed each other by moments.

At the contest Miguel signs up with the nickname Hector gave him, Delacruzcito. If he'd used his real name instead - Hector would have connected the dots immediately.

During the Poco Loco performance, if any of the Riveras had just... you know, glanced up at the stage they would surely have recognized Hector as Imelda's frequently-rebuffed former husband and seen the kid in the familiar red hoodie performing with him. See this is what happens when you condition an entire family to ignore music.

Annd on to the alley scene, Imelda talking to Miguel. If she'd said Hector instead of "my husband" it would have all come out right there.

Next-- what if Miguel had mentioned the name Imelda Rivera when introducing himself to De la Cruz? Probably not the same enthusiastic welcome I'd bet-- though in front of an entire crowd of partygoers he'd probably play along until he got his chance to be rid of him.

Miguel: My great-great-grandfather was a musician.

Hector: Spent his life performing like a monkey for complete strangers? Bleh, no thank you, no.

—————————-

I just had a thought.  Hector was trying to Miguel that he doesn’t have to be a musician just to be like your idol.  His love and passion for music came straight from his heart.  Think about it.  Hector said bad stuff about Ernesto de la Cruz and Miguel is like, “Pff, what do you know? You don’t know what you are talking about”.  Hector knows that Ernesto stole his songs instead of making his own.  In a way, Hector is subtly telling Miguel that you shouldn’t grow up to be like someone who cheated by taking someone’s pieces of art they created from their heart.  Miguel is better than that.  Sure, he is just a kid and he thinks that Ernesto was his one and only inspiration to be a musician.  But Miguel goes to the mariachi plaza to be surrounded by people who play music and dance.  Music comes from the heart and soul, not from some famous musician/movie star.

When Hector said, “Im not gonna miss my one chance to cross that bridge  because you want to live out some stupid musical fantasy”, in a way, Hector was right.  Hector thought Miguel came to the Land of the Dead for nothing.  Miguel doesn’t need Ernesto’s/a musician’s blessing just to get approval.  He should just play music and let nothing stop him.  If its his passion, he should just DO IT!  Hector could’ve said “Don’t be like that cheating piece of scum.”  But he did say “You’ll thank me later” when he was trying to take Miguel to his relatives.  Miguel could have one of his relatives take him home (buuuut of course, there is the cursed guitar and the curse wouldn’t have been lifted if he went back to square one and blah blah blah).

For example, one of those moments I love the most is Poco Loco scene. When the Rivera family gets to Plaza de la Cruz looking for Miguel, he and Héctor are performing on the stage and nobody seems to notice. Julio, Rosita and Victoria know nothing about Héctor, I suppose the twins got used to ignore his music too, but Imelda? Imelda would've noticed for sure. It was her song, after all. But she's the only one that didn't enter the plaza.

And if you look closely…

She did actually take a few steps towards the plaza, but then Héctor starts singing his verses of Poco Loco and she immediately faces the stage (actually, the twins are also looking at the stage quite shockingly, tbh; at least, one of them). The next thing we know is she has vanished. I like to think she saw him performing and then flew, but the movie couldn't show us her actual reaction, because (by then) we didn't know who Héctor actually was yet.

Another example I like a lot: there are many people that think the twins don't recognize/know anything about Héctor in the Land of the Dead, but look at the bridge scene.

One of the twins is smiling when Héctor shows up disguised as Frida. Why the hell is he smiling like that, when just a moment before they were all stressed about Imelda's and Miguel's situation? And it's a smug smile, like if he (Felipe or Óscar) was suppressing a chuckle ("So it's Frida this year, eh? Come on, Héctor"). But look how cleverly the frame of the scene is set, so his eyes are out of sight and we don't know where that twin is looking at exactly. As far as we know, he could've been lost in his thoughts or he could've spotted his brother in law.

And in the next moment, when Héctor manages to cross and runs to the bridge…

They're whispering! He's telling something to his brother and this is smiling too!

"There he goes again" "Pobre diablo" "I'm glad Imelda's not here to witness this" "It would be the icing on the cake…"

We will never know what are the twins doing or talking about, it's something out of our reach; but that's the magic of this kind of details. You can imagine whatever you want, and Coco is full of moments like these.

Recently, I've also noticed the faces of Rosa and Abel while the family is scolding Miguel after finding out his hideout. She looks concerned.

He looks shocked when Miguel's talking about Ernesto.

And when Elena is about to smash the guitar, Abel's not surprised, he's in pain.

Because, while I've seen a lot of fics that have them being neutral to each other, or even friends, Julio is Coco's husband.

He's got to know how much her father's leaving affected her— in fact he may know more about how it affected her as an adult than even Imelda and the twins know.

He knows how she kept singing that stupid song her father sang her— the one he later sold to Ernesto de la Cruz— each night after she thought everyone else was asleep.

He remembers when she stopped, shortly after Victoria was born, the night after she confessed to him that she couldn't understand how anyone could abandon their child if they loved them anything like as much as she loved hers.

He knows about the letters and the scrap of photo she saved, and caught her rereading them and crying to herself at least once.

On the last few, painful, Día de Muertoses of her life, after she started losing her memory completely, he heard her asking when her papá was coming home, snd he saw the pained expressions on the faces of the rest of the family, the living and the dead.

Plus, I have this other headcanon that Imelda put Julio through hell during the first couple years of his and Coco's marriage, because she was determined to make sure that her daughter never had to go through what she'd gone through, even if that meant making sure that Coco's husband was too terrified of his mother-in-law to ever dream of making a run for it.

And, of course, he's a father himself. So he knows what it's like and has spent a lot of time— particularly after Victoria died— wondering how any father could ever choose to be separated from his daughter and never see her again.

As a result of all this, Julio has secretly spent a lot of time fantasising abiut what exactly he'd say if he ever got the chance to give this complete and utter bastard a piece of his mind. And now he finally has that chance, and it's Héctor.

And Héctor just plainly doesn't deserve any of it. This isn't the selfish, fame seeking git of Julio's imagination, who abandonned his family for music and never gave Coco or Imelda a second thought. This is a guy who made a stupid mistake, regretted it almost immediately and has been trying to put things right ever since.

Some days ago, I saw this post about how Remember Me deserved the Oscar for Best Song (with which I totally agree). And today, I was also thinking about how this single verse adds another (and very important) layer of complexity to this song which deserves to be considered.

The English version of Remember Me just says: Remember me, though I have to travel far. Ok, daddy, you're travelling far away, I get it. This verse just talks about two musicians touring around their country in their search of… fame? Appreciation? Inspiration, in Héctor's case? It's a quite simple and innocent verse, you can interpret it as you please.

But Spanish version of Recuérdame says: Recuérdame, aunque tengo que emigrar (Remember me, though I have to EMIGRATE). Yeah, now we're talking. This verse talks about two young men who leave their home trying to find a way to make a living of their work, their talent, their music. They could be emigrants, dreaming of a better life (again in Héctor's case: not just for himself, but also for his family). And how many families get torn apart because of this? How many fathers have to "travel far", away from spouses, children, friends, everything they know and love, for the sake of the family? How many of them spend all day remembering their love ones, while those love ones spend their days remembering them?

Because the movie's main theme is death, we also tend to associate Remember Me just with death and the final loss of the people we love. But don't miss these little details, because we also need to understand that death is not the only kind of separation people have to suffer along their lives. And most of those people don't leave their home because they want to, but because they have no choice.

One last thing…

Look at Imelda's face.

Imelda didn't get mad at Héctor for leaving home, but for leaving her alone with their child by not coming back and disappearing without a word. I don't think "emigration" was a foreign concept for neither of them.

When Coco is looking through the window and it starts raining, a raindrop falls in her cheek, like a depiction of a tear.