Moana

As I watched this movie for the 100^th time at my daughter’s insistence, it still amazingly held my attention. As in the case of good movies, the screenplay of this movie captivates us and takes us along on this beautiful journey. Disney’s Moana is perhaps one of the very few engaging animation movies, that has layers of human emotions quietly concealed in this story of courage, luck, persistence and finally, achievement.

Moana, in short, is a straightforward story of a village chief’s daughter who has to find a demi-god and get him to restore the heart of a ‘Mother Island Goddess’, he had once stolen. Maui’s action of stealing the heart had aroused the ocean monsters and travelling around ocean had become dangerous, pigeon-holding the natives to this island.

The movie starts with a visual splendor of Motunui, an island somewhere in Hawaii, blessed with sunshine and flowers (which transports me to a different world, where I am not ploughing snow off my car in the middle of a freezing never-ending winter). Moana is pretty much guided by her grand-mother, who leads her to the hidden cache of boats and ships that the natives of the island once voyaged and reveals that she is the one, chosen by the ocean, for undertaking this perilous journey to find Maui and restore the heart. In spite of Moana’s father’s numerous warnings, Moana boards her grandmother’s chosen boat and sails to find Maui, much like our life’s journey (which pretty much also is taking us to an unknown destination).

Her encounter with the presumptuous, boasting Demi-god is hilarious and her journey with him and a nearly brainless chicken keeps us entertained through a major part of the movie. Through a series of encounters, both of them understand each other, their inner fears and finally Moana convinces Maui to sail with her to Te Fiti. This I believe teaches us to be patient and understand the people we like in our life.

Their first attempt ends in abject failure where Maui and Moana fight with each other and even after Moana convinces Maui that his strengths lay far beneath himself (more than his magical fish-hook). Maui leaves Moana, but she restarts her journey alone and soon is joined by Maui to restore the heart in spite of stiff opposition from a ‘Lava Demon’ (TeKa). This part is my favorite in the movie as it perhaps asks us to dig deep within our reserves, when luck does not flow in our way in life.

Moana is unable to find TeFiti, but understands than TeFiti has transformed into TeKa due to her lack of heart (indirectly telling us that mother earth will destruct us if we don’t stop polluting and choking her) and as Moana restores the heart back to TeKa/TeFiti, all is well. This journey truly encapsulates our entire life’s journey and I hope by the time the sequel comes out, our daughter would have all grown up into a Moana in her own right.