If you haven’t seen the film, Luca, you’re missing out. In addition to a beautiful story, the views are absolutely spectacular. Sure, it’s an animated movie, but it’s inspired by a real place.
After you watch it, even if you can’t yet travel to Italy, you can daydream of the Italian Riviera with an informed aesthetic in mind!
When you’re stuck inside, it’s important to take care of your mental health. Looking for advice on how to parent from home? See here for parenting tips and tricks on how to be the best parent you can be. It means dreaming and possibly breaking out of your routines. You may need to try something new from the comfort of your living room. One great place to start? With the film, Luca.
Cinque Terre
Luca might be a fictional town, but it’s inspired by a real place. In northwest Italy, just off the coast, lie a series of small sea villages within the Cinque Terre.
Perhaps you’ve seen idyllic photographs of colorful houses standing atop the hillside of the coastline on a postcard or on Pinterest. The sight is quite breathtaking and certainly serves as a frequent point of inspiration for those who visit and those who live there.
The villages of Cinque Terre include the following:
- Monterosso
- Vernazza
- Corniglia
- Manarola
- Riomaggiore
If you ever visit any of them, make sure to get a good map. Each is connected by foot trails and, if you’re feeling up to it, you can do quite a bit of hiking as you sightsee. You can spend a day at the beach, enjoy the seafood and the wine, and have your own little Luca-inspired vacation alone or with friends and family.
Enrico Casarosa
The director of Luca, Enrico Casarosa, is a major reason why the film pulls inspiration from Cinque Terre. Before he was an Academy Award–nominated filmmaker, Casarosa spent a lot of time on the Italian Riviera while growing up in Genoa, Italy.
According to Travel + Leisure, “To create the film and capture the essence of a part of the world so uniquely beautiful, a team of core creatives made trips to Italy to truly understand the magic of it. Initially, a team of writers explored the hills, the waters, and everything in between to learn how to tell the tale.”
“Then,” Casarosa explained, “the second team went from the art department, especially the lighting department. They had to feel that sun on their skin to then try to convey it.”
In addition to being a director, Casarosa has also been a story artist, a story supervisor, a writer, a senior creative director, and a voice actor. While Luca is the first film he has directed, he has been a part of making some extremely successful animated films.
His credits include:
- Ice Age
- Robots
- Cars
- Ratatouille
- Up
- Cars 2
- The Good Dinosaur
- Coco
- Incredibles 2
- Toy Story 4
- Onward
- Soul
Based on these other successes, the man can clearly be called a visionary, so it’s no surprise that his directing debut was such a success. Casarosa has plenty more on the horizon, and hopefully, it’ll be a hot streak.
Luca’s Success
In addition to the audio from Luca becoming a viral TikTok trend, cue, “Silenzio, Bruno!”, the film has done quite well.
While it is available on Disney+, it’s made about 23.7 million dollars at the box office already. Rotten Tomatoes, the notoriously harsh online movie critic site, has ranked it with a score of 90%/100%, which is quite high by their standards.
The infectious positivity and the explorative inspiration have made the movie popular with individuals of all ages. Animated films are often made with adults in mind too, and this one happens to be a movie everyone can enjoy.
