A Best Animated Feature category at the Oscars may have hurt the Best Picture chances of certain cartoons in the past, but the beauty of such a category is that it and the Animated Short category that has existed forever allows for honoring the craft of the most artistic sort of animation. “The Secret of Kells” is the most recent beneficiary.
This Irish indie received a surprise Oscar nod in early 2009 to the universal scratching of heads from American journalists and critics nationwide. I recall viewing the IMDB page for the film the day of the nomination to see it had a 500% increase in popularity over the last few articles. Articles entitled, “What the hell is ‘The Secret of Kells’” sprang up over night. And it didn’t even get a proper American release until two days prior to the Oscar ceremony.
But what had flown under the radar for so long was a wondrous miracle of 2-D drawings and classical imagery that had undergone production over five years in three countries for about $8 million. The completed film is remarkable, a lovingly sketched film from start to finish.
Director Tomm Moore is an Irish cartoonist with the company Cartoon Saloon, and his work creating Irish comic strips pales in comparison to this massive project devoted to Ireland’s most treasured object, The Book of Kells. From its pages that hold the four Gospels of the New Testament come lavishly illustrated mosaics laced in gold, detailed down to the tiniest initials and monograms.
In its 2-D colorings, Moore and art director Ross Stewart invent a pictorial origin story of the book, charting the book’s growth with equally enchanting and inventive styles along the way.
Be it in verdant explorations of the Celtic forest, chalk drawn dream sequences or shadow puppet nightmares, “The Secret of Kells” is an explosion of colors and shapes so delicately imagined. Every shot seems layered with patterns and symmetrical geometric shapes of all sorts that the film displays mathematic perfection.
And at a lightning pace, the animation flickers along, no shot or pattern identical or for that matter even remotely similar. The film only lingers briefly for us to admire the thousands of butterflies fluttering through the screen or the eel monster zooming through the darkness brilliantly made to be water. And these statically perfect images serve as the ideal placeholders and centerpieces for the film’s characters to be inserted, gliding through on elegant lines or popping into the frame with splashes of color.
Yes, “The Secret of Kells” has a story about a boy forced to remain within the abbey walls but yearning to explore the forest and complete the sacred Book of Kells. It’s an almost unnecessary addition in this 75-minute work of art capable of standing alone and being admired for its craftsmanship above all else.
But the story itself is about the creation and preservation of beauty, the expression of art in order to provide wisdom, insight and hope. It’s fitting that the film itself shares that power.
4 stars