movie review: The Secret of Kells

[calimac]

One of those movies whose theatrical release escaped me and whose DVD is not exactly common local currency either. I suppose Netflix has it, but Redbox apparently didn't. I found it in an independent video store in the City, which still has such establishments, a place so well-stocked it still rents VCR tapes too.

The story, of a young monk who, with the help of his cat and a fairy maiden, defies his abbot's prohibitions and finds his artistic talent and courage so that he may help complete the illumination of the Book of Kells, could have used a little shoring up and tightening. (Why does the abbot, a former illuminator himself, prohibit him? So that there'll be an antagonist.)

But you don't see this one for the story. You see it for the animation. This is simply extraordinary. Inspired by the original medieval illumination style, but transferred to modern cartoon art form, and therefore looking quite a lot like Pauline Baynes's illustrations to Farmer Giles of Ham, it brilliantly adapts the original to this new medium, and has the characters and scenery move effectively in the largely perspective-less environment.

The Irish are, sensibly and historically, worried that the Northmen, as they call them, will come and burn their town. The Northmen, when they arrive, are undefined black-and-red shapes resembling Ralph Bakshi's Nazgul. Any Norse or Viking partisans are not going to be pleased with this. But as a picture of what they must have seemed like to the Irish, it's pretty effective.

Comments

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

I really liked this one too. As you say, the visual style is extraordinary. Another recentish film that used a similar flat perspective was Persepolis, which is a memoir by an Iranian woman using what I take to be a Persian decorative art style as the basis for the animation.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

I saw that one too. And I read the book.