The Vampire Diaries
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/movies/84952/the-secret-of-kells
Review of The Secret of Kells
by Jeff Light
Posted on August 4th, 2022
Neutral 6
Overall Rating
 
+
coming up on st. patrick's day so it's time to appreciate some irish cinema. first up is this love letter to celtic folklore. the letterboxd description here is a tad misleading, because it makes it sound like a rip-roaring adventure. to be honest, despite the short run time, this film is more on the leisurely, uneventful side. it hangs the threat of a viking invasion over the characters from the start, but 90% of it is about getting materials to draw in a book. this is like an art student's fever dream. :) at its worst, the film can seem more like a cartoon network tv episode than a theatrical story. fortunately, its worst is mostly at the start, with a simplistic and silly sequence involving chasing a goose... cuz you gotta put in something for the wee ones? however, after about 15 minutes, it starts building depth, both in narrative and animation. the animation style will stay simple and even cheap-looking throughout, but what they do well is play with contrast. shadow and light, contrasting patterns overlaid, stark colors jutting against each other. it's very evocative of the series samurai jack and the work of genndy tartakovsky. for some people, this will still not be as engaging as pixar animation or some of the detailed work out of japan, but if you prefer hand-drawn, watch through to the end because there is more and more to appreciate. the story actually falters a bit midway through however, because it never really sells its central premise. the idea is that this holy book is of utmost importance, worth dying for because it will "bring light to the darkness". our main character brendan fights against the ironically earthly-focus of the abbot and other monks in order to carry on this spiritual long game. along the way, he meets forest spirits and evil gods and journeys through space and time, and then we're meant to refocus on drawing in a book? that'd better be one phenomenal book! is it? (spoilers hereafter) short answer: not really. the book doesn't stop vikings, save lives, or unite a people. and in fact, we never even see a full page from the book. the big reveal at the end is that several of brendan's works on the book's pages are animated for us to see the detail, but there's no presentation of the book itself. there's no mid-shot of turning a page, and then zooming in on detail, and then on more detail (which i can assure you is exactly what you do when you view the real book. it is viewable online here: https://digitalcollections.tcd.ie/concern/works/hm50tr726?locale=en) the book in fact is rather less remarkable than frickin faery song and dark gods! you can't just drop those into a story and then move on la di dee, la di da. from that point, i pretty much only cared what happened with brendan and aisling (spoiler: nothing, not even a goodbye) and about how the book was going to harness the power of crom cruach (uh, it doesn't...or does? not really clear.) basically, the animation of the film gets stronger as it goes, and the story gains momentum, but then it kind of runs out of steam, skips 20-ish years, and just ends with "...and that is how the book of kells came to be..." or some such. it ends up with a rather thin narrative and characters that remain as traditional and 2-dimensional as the animation itself. i'd recommend this one for the kiddos, but it's actually got a fair bit of death and darkness, so probably more like tweens who are super into animation.... or geeky adults like myself.
Jeff Light
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