Those are the most relevant movies/media I could find – if anyone has other ones where the rites are a central part of the plot, don’t hesitate to tell me.
Obon (2018)
Obon is a 2D animated short-film documentary by André Hörmann and Anna Samo, drawn in a sumi-e Esque style. It depicts Akiko Takakura, one of the last remaining survivors of the atomic bomb attack on Hiroshima. She tells her life story during the Obon, doing traditional activities like building an eggplant cow, praying at the family altar, visiting her families grave, leaving flowers and candies and releasing a floating lantern. Akiko Takakura is one of only 10 people within a radius of 500 meters from ground zero to have survived the atomic bomb blast. While her colleague and friend Satomi Usami died from burns and a broken back, Ms. Takakura survived the catastrophe by sheer luck. She remembers extraordinary details and is able to bring them to life in her stories. The scenes described in the script are based solely on her experiences.
The present is rendered in cool blues while her memories are brown and earth‑toned; visually, this reverses the intuitive association of colour with life and grey with the past. The blue present is quiet, reflective, almost suspended while the brown flashbacks feel dense, scorched and grounded in the physical trauma of Hiroshima.
The book of Life (2014)
The story is told by Mary Beth, a museum tour guide, that takes a group of students serving detention on a secret tour, telling them the story of a Mexican town called San Angel from the Book of Life, which holds every story in the world. She uses wooden puppets to tell the story, which is why the story has the same style in the movie.
Manolo, a young man whose world shatters when Maria – his beloved – appears to die before his eyes. Consumed by grief, he makes a fateful choice: to follow her into the Land of the Remembered.
Mary describes the Land of the Remembered like this: “The land of the Remembered was vibrant and joyous. Everything was like the land above, but it was more colourful. It was more beautiful. It was more festive. And on the Day of the Dead, that place was bursting with endless parties and spectacular parades.”
The dead who are remembered live in saturated hues and perpetual fiesta; this aligns with the festival’s idea that remembrance keeps the dead socially “alive.” By contrast, the Land of the Forgotten is desaturated, rough and desolate, a world where colour has drained away because memory has failed. The binary between these two realms literalises a key idea from the festival: that the true death is to be forgotten.
The Halloween Tree (1993)
Moundshroud explains to a group of kids what Halloween really is about while searching for their friend Pipkin, who’s suffering from appendicitis, which brings him to the verge of death. He shows them what their costumes symbolize.
The group builds a kite that sends them back in time, first to Ancient Egypt, where they learn about the celebration “the Feast of the Ghosts” and about the significance of mummification. Then they arrive at Stonehenge in the Dark Ages in England. There, Celtic druids harvest straw to make into brooms, they discover a coven of witches chanting and celebrating the new year. Then in France, they arrive at Notre Dame in Paris where they learn about gargoyles and demons. Finally in Mexico, they learn about the significance of skeletons during “Día de los Muertos”.
As they travel, Halloween shifts from an evening of fun to a kind of educational rite of passage in which the children learn that their play is rooted in older, more serious practices of appeasing, honouring or understanding the dead.
Pipkin’s illness anchors these lessons in a concrete fear of losing a friend. The children’s journey, and the “bargain” they ultimately strike for his life, turns the festival into a negotiation with death rather than a simple celebration or a purely solemn vigil. Visually, the film uses seasonal colours to tie its global tour back to Halloween’s own palette: autumnal, liminal, tied to harvest and encroaching darkness.
