BEFORE: Michael McGrath carries over from "Ira & Abby", at least I think he does. The IMDB, my primary source for cast information, is a little unclear on this point - according to the IMDB there are multiple people with movie credits who have that name, and the Michael McGrath listed for "Ira & Abby" does not also have "The Secret of Kells" on his filmography - BUT the IMDB lists him as doing a voice for "Wolfwalkers", which is a sequel to "The Secret of Kells". SO I strongly suspect that the IMDB has an error, and perhaps the voice-work for tonight's film was credited to the wrong Michael McGrath. I can't prove it for sure, however I've seen this sort of thing before. There is a director named Mike Mills, who made the films "Beginners" and "20th Century Women", and he shares his name with a band member from R.E.M., who also happens to compose music for many movies - so their credits were all mixed up together for a long while, and I stepped in to try to straighten the whole thing out.
Fortunately, this actor also has a page on Wikipedia, and it confirmed that the Michael McGrath who played that Irish doorman in yesterday's film is the SAME Michael McGrath who did a voice in "The Secret of Kells" - so I feel a lot more confident about not breaking the chain, but now I have to somehow convince the IMDB that their listing is incorrect, which is often not easy. I suggest additions and corrections all the time, but I'll go on a good run where they just approve every suggestion I make, and then for a week or two they'll reject everything - like I noticed that they didn't list Patton Oswalt in their credits for "Nostalgia", but I've submitted the addition twice and they won't believe me. But, come on, he's listed in the credits on Wikipedia, and on-screen at the end of the film, plus, I SAW HIM in the movie. So why not believe me? Why would I lie? You trusted me about 10 corrections last week, why suddenly think I"m trying to pull a fast one here? How would it benefit me if I were to get Patton Oswalt credited for a movie that he's not really in?
THE PLOT: A young boy in a remote medieval outpost under siege from barbarian raids is beckoned to adventure when a celebrated master illustrator arrives with an ancient book, brimming with secret wisdom and powers.
AFTER: Of course, it's St. Patrick's Day, and my original plan was to land "The Banshees of Inisherin" on the holiday, but that didn't really work out, because of where my romance chain ended, coupled with the fact that the next film in my chain was going to be "Calvary", and then that one started to feel like a better fit for Easter. So I stretched my chain out just a little bit, and I found some bridging material - two weeks worth - to fit between the two films with Brendan Gleeson in them, and then it started to make sense to watch THIS film instead on March 17, thus figuring that this film might even be more Irish than that other one - but really, they can both be Irish, I don't need to worry so much over which one lands on 3/17.
Then I realized that I'd be working at the New York International Childrens Film Festival today, so yeah, sure, an animated film with kids in it seemed to tie in with that. Once I got to work, I saw that one of the screenings today is "Puffin Rock and Friends", based on a Netflix animated series, but produced by Cartoon Saloon, which is the studio that made, you guessed it, "The Secret of Kells". Two of the animators spoke on a panel after the film, and yeah, I looked them up, at least one worked on "The Secret of Kells" which came out 15 years ago. (I think I remember meeting this film's director, Tomm Moore, at a party in NYC in maybe 2010, when he was traveling to promote the film.). So there you have it, another fantastic coincidence, that I would avoid watching "The Secret of Kells" for 15 years and then finally watch it the day before a special St. Patrick's Day event at my job, promoting a different film from the same studio. I'm kidding, there are no coincidences, just confluences that are all around, and at times we are lucky enough to witness and acknowledge.
I didn't have much time to focus on this film last night, just enough time to watch it quickly and then try to get some sleep, because I had to be up at 6:30 am in order to leave the house at 7:00 and open up the theater by 8:00. So I'm exhausted right now, 3/4 of the way through the festival's workday with just two screenings to go after "Puffin Rock and Friends". And oh, great, it's a theater full of screaming kids (whether from happiness or crankiness, does it even matter?) and I'm on my fourth dose of caffeine hoping that I won't crash until I'm safe at home at 8:00 pm. Weekend shifts are the longest, and festival shifts can be the toughest.
Unfortunately I didn't really understand most of what occured in "The Secret of Kells". Part of the problem could have been that the film isn't streaming anywhere, not for free or even "for free", so I was forced to watch it on my favorite pirate site, and that meant that no working captions were available, and thus the combination of my bad hearing and some strong Irish accents meant that I was frequently confused about what was happening in the film. I get that young Brendan lives in an abbey and cannot leave for his own safety, but a visit from a famed illustrator of religious books who needs materials for his inks means that Brendan is tasked with entering the forest for the first time to obtain berries that he needs to make a special green ink.
It's a contrivance for sure - why did the visiting Brother Aidan only need GREEN ink, did he bring all the other colors with him, but forget one color? If the berries produce the best, brightest green ink, why not plant those berries somewhere else, more convenient to the island where he works on his illustrations? Why does this forest supply berries that make great ink that is green, but not other plant-based materials that are other colors? Is it because we're in Ireland and green is the national color, or is green the national color BECAUSE of those super berries? It's all maybe a bit unclear, the only thing that's clear is that the story needs to push Brendan out into the larger, more dangerous world.
Abbot Cellach is obsessed with building a wall around the Abbey to prevent attacks from the Vikings - I think this plot point can be taken at face value, more or less, it's not some big metaphor for the anti-immigration policies of certain politicians, for example - anyway this film came out years before U.S. Republicans started to drum up xenophobia and anti-immigrant rhetoric to get elected. So I'm inclined to take this at face value, the abbot just wants to protect the illustration work being done by the monks (friars?) inside because it has so much religious importance.
Speaking of religion, I need to point out that the real Book of Kells is a fancy decorated Bible, or the Gospels at least, and that fact is never even mentioned in this movie. I suppose I should be happy that a film isn't promoting the Catholic religion as a tangential part of its story, but then again it just seems like an odd thing to fail to mention. Sure, the art is very pretty and the calligraphy is ornate, but isn't it a bunch of important words first and a decorative relic second? Focusing on the art in the Book of Kells is a bit like reading the Dead Sea Scrolls for the recipes. When the book is said to "turn darkness into light" I naturally assumed this was a metaphor, that the book sheds the light of knowledge on the world, dispelling the darkness of ignorance - but there are some points in the film where someone opens the book and beams of light come out, so perhaps that was meant to be literal?
Brendan meets a fairy (?) named Aisling in the forest, or she's a nymph or a druid or maybe just a regular person who lives outside, all that was unclear too. Jesus, don't be afraid to spell it out, because I'm kind of ignorant that way, just tell me what's happening, PLEASE. I had to look the plot up on Wikipedia to figure out what happened - they go deep into the forest and find a deity of death named Crom Cruach, which calls Brendan dangerously closer and AIsling knocks down a statue to prevent him from entering the demon's (?) inner chamber. But when Brendan gets back to the monastery, Brother Aidan talks about a special magnifying lens that will assist in creating the art for the book, and it's called "The Eye of Colm Cilie", and wouldn't you know it, Brendan has seen that lens before, on the eye of that forest demon. So it's BACK out into the deadly forest to get this lens - couldn't Brother Aidan have mentioned it before Brendan went to get the berries, so he'd only have to make ONE trip?
But Brendan goes back, he battles the dark deity to get the eye/lens, and tricks the blind snake/demon into eating itself, forming an ouroboros and then ceasing to exist. I've got to call this into question, maybe, like would a snake eating its own tail just blink out of existence, or would it just die at some point, leaving a half-eaten snake with its body filling its own mouth? Discus
Later, after young Brendan (somehow) uses the Eye of Colm Cilie to become a masterful illustrator almost overnight (oh, if only it were THAT easy...) the Vikings attack the Abbey - well, I guess the Abbot was right after all, but his timing was absolutely terrible, I'm guessing that wall wasn't even CLOSE to being finished. The Abbot is stabbed and the village is burned, but Brendan and Aidan escape through the forest, where the Vikings destroy the book and steal the jewels from it, but the pages are saved, and Brendan spends the next twenty years finishing it, finally returning to show it to the aged Abbot Cellach. So, umm, hooray?
It's a beautiful-looking film, although I thought some of the characters were too stylized, they had weird body shapes or features that were too cartoony, but my main problem was the story, that I never really knew what was happening or what it all meant in the long run.
Also starring the voices of Evan McGuire, Brendan Gleeson (last seen in "Kingdom of Heaven"), Christen Mooney, Mick Lally (last seen in "Circle of Friends"), Liam Hourican, Paul Tylak, Paul Young.
RATING: 5 out of 10 quill feathers
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