This animated feature begins with a busload of recalcitrant American youngsters arriving at a museum towards closing time. A glamorous guide diverts them to a side door and a mysterious shadowy gallery dedicated to the Mexican Day of the Dead; here she begins to relate folkloric stories from the Book of Life (not to be confused with the Jewish and Christian ideas of a register of the blessed). These tales focus on the town of San Angel and a tussle between two gods, La Muerte, a fetching if skeletal female figure who has jurisdiction over the vibrant, colourful region of the remembered dead, and Xibalba, who presides over the chilly crepuscular depths of the forgotten. These deities make a wager over three youngsters – two boys, Manolo and Joaquín, and a girl, Maria. When the