Ok I know you're probably following me for my art but just in case anyone wants to hear more of my Luca ramblings:
I think I just got why I like this movie so much after thinking about it for a good while.
So, sea monsters are not a thing in Italian culture, pretty much. Even if there were such mythos somewhere at some point, they probably got engulfed by catholicism early on and rever really spread to the rest of the peninsula.
Mermaids as a concept are pretty international and can be easily understood by quite a few cultures.
On paper, that's bad. You basically get one shot at representing your country and your culture through the very popular, incredibly mainstream means of a Pixar movie, and you choose a plot that could be set pretty much anywhere else with a coastline, virtually unchanged.
I've even read complaints that Italy does not add anything to the plot.
And then I realized. Where else in the world should this story take place, in a way where "not adding anything to the plot" is allowed? North America? Just because we're used to stories set in the anglo-sphere that aren't as culturally charged? Should every story ever told either be set in the USA or be the country-of-choice equivalent of Coco? Can't we have random stories that bend around and blend into the culture of their settings instead of building their plot ONTO the setting?
The point is, this story just so happens to be set in Italy.
As I said: the core of the plot itself, sea-monsters, isn't really a part of Italian culture. And yet... everything else about this movie is so very Italian. Yes, the random Italian words thrown in, the hand gestures and all the pasta eating, but also the low-stakes story, the unrestrained summer fun, the focus on childhood and friendship.
Luca takes a concept that is not Italian and makes it Italian, and I don't know
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