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These days, plain old 2-D animation is the equivalent of ink and quills. How fitting, to glorify the ancient art and craft of illustration. And how rare and wonderful, to have an animated feature that celebrates art and knowledge more than technology.
Pixar's and Disney's CG and 3-D mega-hits have so dominated the market that precious few traditional-animated films attract much attention, but "The Secret of Kells" is a brilliant little Irish exception.
Its thin story line has young Brendan living in a remote ninth-century monastery-fortress under the strict eye of his uncle, the Abbott of Kells, who is preoccupied with defending the abbey and its scriptorium against Viking raids. Enter Brother Aidan, the master illuminator, who looks and even talks a bit like Willie Nelson. He is freshly arrived from the Scottish Isle of Iona, carrying an unfinished, mystically powerful Book that "turns dark into light."
- Voices: Brendan Gleeson, Cristen Mooney, Evan McGuire.
- Rating: Rating: PG-13 in nature for scary images.
- Web site: 'The Secret of Kells'
- Opens today at Regent Square Theater.
Brendan enlists to help complete it, but first he must learn the craft and brave an enchanted forest where all manner of threatening creatures lie in wait. An adorable forest-fairy named Aisling helps him, as does a charmingly aloof cat named Pang. But the Vikings are coming, the Vikings are coming ...!
More on the story and the Book later.
Most important: The film is a veritable illuminated manuscript in itself, replicating those tiny, sumptuous decorations crammed into the Book's margins. Every shot is adorned with patterns and borders, arches and frames, in stunningly ornate detail. Each scene contains a different stylized rendering of buildings, mazes, monsters and people, whose lines and shapes come alive in abstract as well as representational ways. The resultant images (influenced, I bet, by "Yellow Submarine's" Pepperland) are literally kaleidoscopic.
Characters and action alike are pre-perspective, like the manuscripts -- simply and geometrically drawn, moving in the same 2-D plane, never jumping out at you. At its best, it's like being transported on a cosmic-artistic spaceship. At worst, now and then, it's like watching overwrought wallpaper on LSD.
I normally avoid the blogosphere but stumbled across the following fab exchange between two bright young film fans, complaining about the story deficiencies:
Blogger #1: "What was the purpose or content of the Book that everybody's making such a fuss about? It `turns darkness into light,' but we're never shown anything of the sort. The Book certainly doesn't help defend against the invaders."
Blogger #2: "Well, I think I figured it out after some research. Apparently this is a 'dramatization' of a historical event in 19th-century Ireland. Therein lies the problem. Given how little there is to the story based off of real events, that's why the ending [stank]. In trying to be historically accurate, it kneecapped what the story might have had if some poetic license were involved. That's why 'Inglourious Basterds' was so great; it cared more about making a great movie than adhering to the starchy sting of reality."
Gotta love that "starchy sting of reality." We must admire them for their curiosity and forgive them for being 11 centuries off (and Tarantino-seduced). How can they know what the story fails to tell them?
Crash course: The Book of Kells, created by Celtic monks c. 800 A.D., is an illuminated manuscript of the four Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John), written in Latin with various prefatory texts and tables. It is the masterwork of Western calligraphy and illustration, and the greatest national treasure of Ireland. After the collapse of the Roman Empire, Irish Monks were crucial in preserving the classical literature of Greece and Christianity -- against the Vikings and other barbarians -- for Europe.
Irish Christianity was more pagan than orthodox Euro-Christianity, with many remnants of Celtic mythology. Which brings us back, not a moment too soon, to the film and my bloggers' other great question: "Where the Hell was Aisling for the third act? If this movie had been made in the U.S., the Faerie would have had a much bigger role because faeries sell more toys."
Fairies like Aisling were related to the old pagan gods. They came to the aid of imaginative people like writers and artists. Aisling's presence in "The Secret of Kells" melds the old and new beliefs, coexisting in Brendan's mission to illuminate, literally and figuratively -- enlightenment being the best defense against evil.
The blogger is right on: Aisling's disappearance in the film is a major flaw. So is its failure to give us more than a hint of the Book's actual images at the end.
Even so, director Tomm Moore's gorgeous, hand-drawn adventure -- a serious contender to "Up" for the best animated feature Oscar -- is pure delight. Due to the culture-vs.-war issues, I'd say it is mainly for adults. But kids older than 5 or 6 can also enjoy and benefit from its magic. Kids under 5, on the other hand, may be traumatized by the monsters and have to be taken to shrinks. I'd take mine (they're going to shrinks anyway). But it's your parental call.
All in all, a terrifically illuminating, as well as illuminated, experience.
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