Director: Tomm Moore
Starring: Evan McGuire, Brendan Gleeson
When watching a movie, I always enjoy the fun challenge of trying
to guess where exactly is it trying to take me. Usually you get a pretty linear
plot: you start with a problem, you work towards a solution and you drudge through
the credits. Sometimes you get a little twist, a shocker, an unexpected moment,
things not being what they seems and the whole film takes on a new meaning. And
in rare cases you get a movie like The
Secret of Kells which has random fits of “but you really don’t have to give
a shit about all that stuff you just watched.”
Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed The Secret of Kells. I just felt like it was three television
pilots of three different series smashed into one movie that…sorta worked…I
guess. On one pilot you have the adventures of Brendan, a spry, curious young
boy reacting to the sudden discovery of the world outside the walls of his
city. On another, you have you a gripping drama about dancing around the line
where safety and security can go too far as the city of Kells prepares for an
inevitable barbarian invasion. And on the last you have a religious propaganda piece
on the creation of The Book of Kells, a very real book based on the four
gospels of the New Testament if they were created by people practicing their psychedelic
religious wallpaper designs at the same time.
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| Aisling, who you also really don't have to give a shit about. But she's a badass demi-god...who sings to animals. Because duh. |
The Secret of Kells
is an absolutely beautiful movie. It took me back to the days of Don Bluth
where parts of the frame that were not pivotal to what was going on it where
allowed to shine because of the attention to detail paid to them. Visuals were
stunning and the Celtic feel oozed through the watercolor backdrops highlighted
with patterns and swirls and designs you usually see in those expensive books
in the museum that you’re not allowed to touch. In a feat rarely seen in this
age of digital animation (which this film mostly was), it was clear that there
was an artistic direction that miraculously stayed true to itself through every
scene. Director Tomm Moore has a style that is clearly his with the same kind
of command seen from Studio Ghibli works.
The Secret of Kells is
a kids film, though I only feel that is what we can call it because there are
elements in it that kids would enjoy. The protagonist is a young boy and he has
a band of silly misfit friends. He meets a magical creature as he ventures off
into the woods. It’s animated. There’s a cat. We’ve pretty much met the
standard here. But it didn’t feel like it committed to anything else other than
making this an enjoyable viewing experience (of which it is a GORGEOUS one).
I don’t want to say “this movie is about…” because it
changes focus a few times. We start in the village of Kells with Brendan who’s
just being a young whippersnapper helping out a group of scribes getting
materials to continue the writing of their texts. We care about this because
the village is a few commercial breaks away from getting ransacked by a group
of barbarians and the abbot feels the time and manpower would be better spent
on building a wall. Trying, poorly, to fight the fight of “knowledge gives
people hope,” the village is surprised with arrival of the great scribe Aidan
who recruits Brendan to help fight the fight of “knowledge gives people hope.”
This fight sends Brendan outside of the walls of Kells and into the forests
beyond in your typical “this journey will probably turn you into a man” tale
filled with metaphors and overcoming impossible obstacles in ways that only
mythology can really make sense of.
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| Town builds a wall. Impending doom takes the stairs. Classic. |
So I’m going to stop there because at this point I have to
accept this film for what it is, a beautiful telling of the origin of The Book
of Kells. Most of that stuff above eventually qualifies for the “things you don’t
have to give a shit about” because you aren’t supposed to care about Brendan,
you’re supposed to care about the journey he took for the book. The “knowledge
gives people hope” theme is what the message needs to be despite that we always
have this fear of impending doom looming overhead and we’re focused on Brendan’s
magical adventure. I admit I felt a little blindsided by that after committing
so much time to what was quite a good personal story. I assume this is why the
Bible skips 18 years of Jesus’s life too. Last thing a religion wants to do is
confuse you into thinking you should be caring about people.
Ultimately this is where my reservation lies. It’s hard to
appreciate this film completely because it doesn’t feel structured enough to
really judge. It’s more like a bedtime story that you rush through a bit when
you notice your kid is starting to doze off and won’t be asking “why” every
damn sentence. I got hit with a sudden “aaaaand it’s over” and though I couldn’t
really think of many lingering things I felt were necessary for the story, I
felt a little cheated and unsatisfied when it was all said and done.
So yeah, I’m conflicted here. Though ya know? I was dazzled enough
and not really frustrated per se… Would I watch this again? Eh…I might
actually. I don’t know what kind of mood I would need to be in, but I can’t
help but feel like there’s one out there. So in The Book of BackLOG, that’s at
least worth 7 dustbusters.
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