Come for a great visual experience: this is one of the best animation films to have come out in the last few years. Going back to the genius of Yellow Submarine which set a trend in animation, this film will do the same. Coupled with an ingenious mythical approach to a story which is “mostly true”, the film will please both young and old.
Synopsis: (adapted from a review in Amazon by Jason Wilkerson Click Here)
Brendan dreams of writing the greatest book of all time, but he's stifled by his uncle, Abbot Cellach, who wants Brendan to be practical and help build a wall around the village of Kells to help protect them from an impending Viking attack. When Brother Aidan turns up from another village that's already been attacked by the vikings, he captivates Brendan because he was a great writer, and he asks Brendan to help him finish the now legendary Book of Kells. Now, Brendan must defy his uncle's warnings and venture into the forest outside Kells and confront his fears of the "Dark One" to find inspiration to finish the great Book of Kells.
The Academy Awards have a tendency to nominate a lot of films that have only been released in limited release and are not very widely seen. Some people see this as a detriment, thinking that the Academy has lost touch because it typically doesn't look at the more widely seen and generally loved movies. In my opinion this is actually a strength, when awards season rolls around I'm looking up those other movies to catch the gems that I missed, knowing that something great is out there that should have been released wide. That's the case with The Secret of Kells. To be honest, and it's kind of sad, I'm not too familiar with animation outside of anime and American anime. Thanks to the Academy Awards, though, I found out about this great animated feature.
Kells is the type of movie that kind of has one foot planted in fantasy and legend, and another foot planted in reality. The Book of Kells is a real historical book created around the 6th to 9th centuries and is considered Ireland's finest national treasure. The origin of the Book of Kells is still widely disputed, so the creation of the book is ripe to made into a film of sorts. In The Secret of Kells, the story revolves around an older monk teaching a child about inspiration and art to create the Book of Kells. In reality, it seems the major theme of this movie deals with one generation teaching another generation about the art of hand drawn animation. In a day and age when computer animation has all but taken over for the older hand drawn animation, it's great to see a film that's more of a call to the old traditions and does it so well. The Secret of Kells is beautifully rendered to the screen, as well as highly original, still looking better than a lot of computer animated features that come out these days which makes it's message that much more potent as well.
Nora Twomey
(1971) is an Irish animator and filmmaker. She is a partner in Cartoon Saloon, an animation studio and production company, based in Kilkenny City, Ireland. She was educated at St. Mary's High School in Midleton, Co.Cork. Later she studied animation at Ballyfermot College in Dublin.
In 1998 she helped found Cartoon Saloon, along with Tomm Moore, Paul Young and Ross Murray. In 2002 she directed the award-winning short animated film From Darkness. She also worked on the successful animated TV series Skunk Fu!. She co-directed, with Tomm Moore, The Secret of Kells, an animated feature film.[3] The film is set in 9th century Ireland, at the time when the Book of Kells was written. The film premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival in February 2009. The Secret of Kells has been nominated in the category of Best Animated Feature Film at the 82nd Academy Awards.
Tomm Moore
(1977) is an Irish illustrator, comics artist and filmmaker. He is co-founder of Cartoon Saloon, an animation studio and production company, based in Kilkenny, Ireland. His first two feature films, The Secret of Kells (2009) and Song of the Sea (2014), were both nominated for the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature.