Disney’s Encanto features one of the most emotionally brutal scenes, featuring Bruno, and Director Jared Bush couldn't agree more. While many of the heart-wrenching moments throughout the film are beautiful and elegant in their own way, none of them came close to Bruno Madrigal’s most devastating moment. In reference to the scene, Encanto director Jared Bush tweeted “I love this revelation so much - the turn from Bruno’s comedy, to this gut punch shows the immense emotional power of visual storytelling.”
Bruno was gifted with the ability to foresee the future. With his gift, he became a neutral observer of the events that would unfold, with little to no power to change the outcome. He unfairly shouldered the blame for his visions of the future, the villagers quickly declaring him wicked. What was at first a blessing rapidly became a curse and Bruno found himself made a pariah among his village but more devastatingly, a pariah among his family. Abuela had expectations of perfection from the Madrigals, who she refused to see weakened, and Bruno’s often negative visions brought out the supposed weakness she feared. He slowly retreated into himself as the years progressed and when he finally foresaw the destruction of the Madrigal home through Mirabel, he fled Casita with the vision glass.
When Mirabel finds her tio Bruno within the walls of Casita, she enters his nook to see a small place setting painted onto a rickety table. With light streaming through a crack in the wall before her, Mirabel peers in and is faced with the realization that for all the years that the family thought he was gone, Bruno had been in his room quietly enjoying his meals alongside them in the hopes of retaining some sense of a familial bond. It is made abundantly clear just how dysfunctional the family is underneath the facade of perfection that Abuela demanded. In this brief moment, all the rumors of Bruno’s alleged villainy dissolve away, and he is finally shown as the unfairly ostracized, wounded man that he truly is.
Why Bruno's Plate Scene In Encanto Is So Heartbreaking
Regardless of the Madrigals' unfair treatment of Bruno in Encanto, he still loved his family and couldn’t stand the thought of never seeing them again. Instead of setting out on his own to get as far away as possible, he stayed close. So close, in fact, that he was right under their noses. While they carried on with their lives and sang songs about how evil he was, Bruno quietly watched those he loved from his place of hiding and consistently forgave them for their continual slander.
Situations of intergenerational trauma are never as simple or straightforward as they may appear to those on the outside, something that Encanto explores at length. Through Abuela’s inability to admit her fault and her own misguided but well-intended attempts at shielding her progeny from the trauma she endured, she ended up projecting her own trauma and insecurities onto her family and continuing the cycle. Bruno was a kind, quirky, soul who was gifted with a power he hadn’t asked for. He did his best to try and please Abuela but was shoved into the role of the black sheep and the family scapegoat. He simply wanted to be loved and accepted, mirrored in Mirabel’s journey to seek the same. His desire to retain his semblance of a family was heartbreaking as he consistently forgave every unkindness thrown at him and just wanted the love and acceptance of those he cared for the most in Encanto, regardless of their own feelings towards him.