Secret of Kells
‘The Secret of Kells’’ was the wild card in the recent Oscar animation race — the little Irish movie no one had heard of, let alone seen. Call it luck or a brilliant promotional strategy, but the movie opens at the Kendall today with local animaniacs primed to happily pounce. As well they should, for “Kells’’ is a visually overwhelming labor of love, a hand-drawn medieval adventure tale that seeks and finds cosmic connections.
Yes, you can still bring the kids. The hero of “Kells’’ is Brendan (voiced by Evan Maguire), a young boy who has been apprenticed to his forbidding uncle, the Abbott of Kells (Brendan Gleeson), and ordered never to leave the monastery. There are enough dangers out there — wolves, eldritch Celtic gods, rampaging Vikings — that the Abbott is obsessively building high walls to protect the monks and the illuminated manuscripts upon which they labor.
There’s a real Book of Kells — a 9th-century version of the New Testament renowned for its brilliant ornamentation, it’s considered Ireland’s national treasure — but it probably wasn’t created this way. The monks in “The Secret of Kells’’ are a consciously international lot and drawn by Tomm Moore with geometric glee: a big, domelike African, a toadstool-size Asian, a spherical Italian. The Abbott is a rectangular figure of authority, all corners, no curves. Brendan, blessedly, is a kid, although the lines of medieval il lustration lift his face into a smile.
The appearance of Brother Aidan (Mick Lally), a puckish renegade fleeing the invaders, kicks the plot into gear. He encourages Brendan’s reckless artistic side and sends the boy out to the forest to gather materials for ink. There the movie lifts off into a Celtic eco-pantheism not far in feel from the work of Hayao Miyazaki (“Spirited Away,’’ “Ponyo’’). Brendan befriends Aisling (Christen Mooney), a forest wild girl with mysterious connections to the animals, plants, and Druidic forces. On the plot level, then, “The Secret of Kells’’ is
Yes, you can still bring the kids. The hero of “Kells’’ is Brendan (voiced by Evan Maguire), a young boy who has been apprenticed to his forbidding uncle, the Abbott of Kells (Brendan Gleeson), and ordered never to leave the monastery. There are enough dangers out there — wolves, eldritch Celtic gods, rampaging Vikings — that the Abbott is obsessively building high walls to protect the monks and the illuminated manuscripts upon which they labor.
There’s a real Book of Kells — a 9th-century version of the New Testament renowned for its brilliant ornamentation, it’s considered Ireland’s national treasure — but it probably wasn’t created this way. The monks in “The Secret of Kells’’ are a consciously international lot and drawn by Tomm Moore with geometric glee: a big, domelike African, a toadstool-size Asian, a spherical Italian. The Abbott is a rectangular figure of authority, all corners, no curves. Brendan, blessedly, is a kid, although the lines of medieval il lustration lift his face into a smile.
The appearance of Brother Aidan (Mick Lally), a puckish renegade fleeing the invaders, kicks the plot into gear. He encourages Brendan’s reckless artistic side and sends the boy out to the forest to gather materials for ink. There the movie lifts off into a Celtic eco-pantheism not far in feel from the work of Hayao Miyazaki (“Spirited Away,’’ “Ponyo’’). Brendan befriends Aisling (Christen Mooney), a forest wild girl with mysterious connections to the animals, plants, and Druidic forces. On the plot level, then, “The Secret of Kells’’ is