{"id":7085,"date":"2010-02-21T20:07:20","date_gmt":"2010-02-22T04:07:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/?p=7085"},"modified":"2010-02-22T13:53:03","modified_gmt":"2010-02-22T21:53:03","slug":"the-secret-of-kells-tomm-moore-2009-ireland-france-belguim","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/?p=7085","title":{"rendered":"The Secret of Kells (Tomm Moore, 2009): Ireland, France, Belguim"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reviewed by Khristine Biver<\/a>. \u00a0Viewed at Santa Barbara Film Festival 2010. <\/em><\/p>\n

\"\" <\/em>In his first feature length animation, <\/em>The Secret of Kells<\/a>, <\/em>director Tom Moore dazzles and delights the audience with the beautifully illustrated story of the value of a good story.\u00a0 <\/em> <\/em><\/p>\n

Brendan is a young boy living in Ireland in the time of Vikings. \u00a0In order to protect themselves from the colonizing Vikings, he and his uncle are hard at work building a wall that will protect their Abbey of Kells from the outside world.\u00a0 (Though we aren\u2019t privy to any information of the rest of his family, one assumes their fates are the real inspiration for the wall.)\u00a0 Brendan seeks solace in reading and writing, while his uncle is more focused on keeping the outside world out.\u00a0 As so often happens when family members try to cage each other in, Brendan escapes in a brilliantly beautiful bit of purely inspired animation.\u00a0 This opportunity for escape comes in the form of Brother Aiden, who is in the process of writing the Book of\u00a0 Iona.\u00a0 Brendan ultimately escapes on an adventure through the surrounding forest, helping to write the Book of Iona.<\/p>\n

As he evokes various indigenous images while experimenting with CGI and illustration, thus presenting a sort of homage to the history of animated filmmaking, Moore bases the story on various anecdotes from Irish folklore.\u00a0 The Book of Kells is a real figment of Irish folklore, being the document that survived 1000 years to bring the four gospels of the Old Testament to centuries of people.\u00a0 This is one of the stories that exists as to how the book managed to survive so long.\u00a0 Moore specifically avoids getting into the substance of the text of the Book of Kells.\u00a0 This is not a story about religion; it\u2019s the film of how a story came to be.<\/p>\n

Though the story is engaging, it is the animation that truly elevates this 2D film to awe-inspiring.\u00a0 Utilizing animation techniques that evoke images of, among other pieces of art, stained glass and dreamcatchers, the effect is technically stunning even while lacking in the technology available to the best animated filmmakers. The way the filmmakers layered the images gives the 2D film a sort of physical depth, as in the depiction of the ocean that is reminiscent of a pop-up book.\u00a0 The 2D animation serves as a reminder that, sometimes, the best techniques are the original techniques, just as the best stories are the ones that have been around for a long time.<\/p>\n

This is a film that will be well-received by a wide range of audiences, due to the incredible visual stimulation.\u00a0 It is a movie that is actually fun to watch, not just to see.<\/p>\n

It is worth noting that Moore used amateur actors rather than proper child actors for the voices, to great effect.\u00a0 He explained he wanted the voices to sound fresh, which they do.\u00a0 The amateur work does not detract from the experience, but adds a new level of authenticity to the story.\u00a0 A child\u2019s natural cry of wonderment differs greatly from what an actor thinks an awestruck child sounds like.\u00a0 Thanks to the voicework, Brendan comes across as an animated child, rather than an animated character.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reviewed by Khristine Biver. \u00a0Viewed at Santa Barbara Film Festival 2010. In his first feature length animation, The Secret of Kells, director Tom Moore dazzles and delights the audience with the beautifully illustrated story of the value of a good story.\u00a0 Brendan is a young boy living in Ireland in the time of Vikings. \u00a0In […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":795,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[76,3,131],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7085","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-animation","category-films","category-santa-barbara-film-festival-2010"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7085","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/795"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7085"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7085\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7085"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7085"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7085"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}