By: Miguel Ernesto Yusty

It's an animated film, released by Disney Studios in 2021. It deals with the drama of forced displacement in Colombia. What's surprising about the film is that, amidst the harshness of the subject matter—the war in Colombia—it manages to tell a funny and poetic story. It's heavily influenced by the world of Gabriel García Márquez, and the creative risk it takes is so great that at times you might think all the characters are dead and that it's a ghost story.

The drama of the Colombian conflict stirs the minds of creators in audiovisual production centers. It's as if so much madness, sustained for so many decades, belongs more to fantasy than to reality itself. Just as today we can speak of a "cartel" genre, which deals with stories related to the mafia, or it's viable to address the tragedy of forced displacement with the support of magical realism. With their narrative expertise, Disney demonstrates that rather than alienating audiences, this kind of content can captivate them, without sacrificing the depth demanded by the subject matter.

ENCANTO, which after several weeks in theaters worldwide is now showing on DISNEY PLUS, is reminiscent of PEDRO PÁRAMO, the 1967 film, or THE OTHERS, from 2001, with family dramas interwoven with war and ghosts, where life strives to take center stage even as death constantly demands attention. Yes, it's a film that young children can enjoy, but it also offers much food for thought for other viewers.