Did George RRRRRRR Martin copy the Book of Kells (the basis for Secret of Kells) and make it into Game of Thrones? Cold, winter attackers from the north and a huge wall - of course he did.
No, this was not a pick to watch with my daughter. I thought about it, but the previews made it look too dark.
Watching Secret of Kells is like walking through an art museum. It’s beautiful and and I’d probably go back, but I don’t “get it.” There’s more here than what I’m seeing and Chel was into debating its deeper meaning, but my brain didn’t naturally go there.
The art in this movie was phenomenal. I was excited at every turn to see what was next in terms of artistic appearance. The story on its surface was good enough to keep me entertained. The chicken chase was amusing and the scenes in the woods would be terrifying outside of animation.
The moral of the story is where my brain gets lost. How am I supposed to interpret keeping the book inside of the wall, thus preventing the spread of knowledge? Could that knowledge have prevented the attack? Help prepare for the attack? Is the deeper meaning not to build walls in our own lives or hearts? Maybe I’m just reaching here - but I’d watch this one again to think more about these things.
As a student of art I really got into the symmetry and color of this movie. Any Irish out there know if a circle has a more significant meaning to their culture? As an anti-philosophy student I struggled to connect on a deeper level. I’m starting at B+, but the more I write and think about this movie the more I lean toward A-. I’d like to pick up The Book of Kells, but I’m not sure I’d open it.
The list of things I love is short compared to others. On that list is celtic music/tradition/accents/folklore. Secret of the Kells falls into that place.
ReplyDeleteLike Bryan, I had many ideas as if there were deeper thoughts throughout the film. Is there a prodigal son meaning? Is the wall symbolic of something? Does the forest mean youthfulness? What about the Willie Nelson lookalike in brother Aiden? Is he the inspiration? What of Brandon? Is he lost in his youth? Is the relationship with his uncle mean something? There is not one consistent theme behind Kells. Many different themes throughout the film exist and they are open to the viewer's interpretation. That is way it should be.
The uncle has a mission and is bothered by his youthful and horizon seeking nephew. He wants the best for him and as many father son, uncle nephew, relationships, it is difficult. The younger wants to be free and enjoy life while the older wants structure to rule the day. In the end, the inevitable takes hold but the uncle did what he thought was best.
What I loved about Kells was the artwork and music. They were simply amazing. The music was well timed throughout the story and I think the artwork made the film receive a few nods for Golden Globes and other major awards. Someone check me on that, please.
The audience for this film is not us. This is meant for eight to eleven year old children. I would have no problem showing this film to my older nieces as they would probably love it.
No major gripes. Decent film throughout and I would watch it again.
Grade: B+
I wasn’t thrilled initially with this selection and the first 10 minutes didn’t make me feel much better about it. But, I’m happy to say that this was a fine little movie.
ReplyDeleteTo begin with, I have no problems with cartoons. A cartoon might have some limitations and it’d be a rare cartoon that made it past a B+, but it can happen. Especially with some of the rest cartoons that we’ve seen in the past 15 years. The consistency has really improved.
Obviously, the art work on the Secret of Kells was fantastic. What a pleasure to watch. It gives it an automatic partial grade bump for that alone. I can imagine kids just sitting there enthralled with this considering I found myself wanting to pause the screen to look at the details at times.
As far as the plot goes, I was pleasantly surprised. The plot surprised me in two ways. First, the vikings freaking won. They just beat everyone’s asses and peaced out. I expected the book to somehow save the village, but nope, just Vikings doing as they please. This story would never fly as begin American because there’s no heroic victory or sacrifice. This darkness is a completely Irish thing.
The second plot surprise is that religion, nature or man couldn’t stop the inevitable. Halfway through, I expected this to be a we need to respect our roots in nature type thing. Nope. None of that. Nature couldn’t save them just like the book (religion) couldn’t save them just like the wall (man) couldn’t save them. I love that this gives us a subtle theme of balance being important. Clinging to one thing like a zealot just won’t save you.
So that is the first theme that I noticed. Choosing religion, nature or man (science?). I liked that they didn’t commit to one not only to save them, but until the very end. I understood from the movie that all of these things can be good, but they also have their negatives. It doesn’t put a stake in the ground and say “older is better because trees have some sort of secret!” or “trust in all new things because newer will always make you happy.”
It brings me to a book I’m reading right now called “Unpersuadables.” It’s about exploring why seemingly intelligent people believe in some dumb shit like flat earth, 8,000 year old earth and yoga can cure cancer. In the opening chapters, he is with a super conservative Christian who believes in a literal Bible interpretation and who is by all accounts intelligent (you know the type). He’s charismatic, leads a bunch of people and, the author believes, genuinely believes in the message he’s sharing. It’s obvious the Christian dude is way out there and he makes some pseudoscientific claims about tree rings and other things proving him right. At the end of the chapter, the author goes to an evolutionary scientist and asks him about the Christian guy’s claims. The scientist just completely owns the Christian guy’s “science.” It’s satisfying. But then the scientist takes it a step to far. He makes his claim that it’s obvious that all religion is a scam. It’s basically a pyramid scheme. He truly believes that religious leaders are only there to gain and keep power and money. And now we’ve skewed the other way into crazytown. This movie had a chance to choose one of these diverging paths. It had a chance to live in a black and white world. Instead it gave us something to think about.
Another theme that I liked was talking about who we are as people. What are we doing on Earth? Does it even matter? The book is discussed as a savior of their people. The boy, and the viewer I think, see it as a way to magically save them from slaughter. Instead, we find that the book is nothing more than a physical representation of culture. You can’t save people from death and destruction. That is a power greater than individual will. You are going to die. Your family is going to die. Your city is going to turn to ash and dust. Even if they defeat the Vikings, they’ll still die eventually and the walls will still corrode and crumble.
ReplyDeleteBut the book allows their memories to continue. It allows a culture to thrive after it’s no longer actually in existence. It’s why I’ve always been drawn to history. It can make you feel small and insignificant if you let it. You can just be a tiny cog in the machine that has gone on before you or after you. Just a small blip in the middle of meaningless nothing. Or you can take the track this story takes and say, hey, this whole existence thing is amazing. We’re all a part of it. Let’s share our part with everyone who comes after us and we’re all connected. That, to me, is overwhelmingly fantastic.
Anyway, a cartoon got me to think about all of that. Kudos.
But it’s not without negatives. The jokes just aren’t terribly funny. Sorry. Even kids might not be amused. I could see some finding this too simple and boring (though I enjoy the relative calm of this movie.)
I can’t figure out if I liked that the Vikings were nameless death machines or if that was too simple. Anyone able to talk me one way or the other here?
I’m leaning A-, but could be talked down to a B+.
Let me guess, you were a history major? So many words!
DeleteOnly kidding. Great review.
Writing many words about things I don't know much about is a valuable skill for a History undergrad.
DeleteGonna make this broad, like the kind of dick you use to have sex with a partially-deaf Japanese girl.
ReplyDeleteFirst, I have very little tolerance for any movie that portrays Irish monks or priests in a positive light. This has nothing to do with The Secret of Kells or The Exorcist or any other movie that contains Irish Catholic authority figures. It's just a bridge I can't cross after reading a handful of monstrously thorough reports about boarding/reform schools in the 1970's and 80's. Watching anything that humanizes one or puts one on any kind of pedestal breaks the work, because I can't help but think about the most horrific shit imaginable done by similar men of the cloth.
Additionally, monasteries and convents are some of the stupidest institutions known to man, so when one gets burned to the ground by rampaging Vikings, it's a general good. It unleashes the intellect and manpower out into the world that used to be trapped inside. Victor Hugo spent a few dozen pages setting the story aside in Les Miserables and just railing against them, and I'm inclined to agree. At least non-molesting priests are in public interacting with people in their own misguided ways.
So the partial stakes of this movie are the protection of the abbey and its inhabitants. The main stakes are the protection and completion of Book. This is something I can get behind, though more figuratively than literally. The Book can go fuck itself, as books like it were self-servingly illuminated to draw peasants into wonder and awe for god, when the time spent illuminating books like it would have been better spent teaching peasants to read, which would have then allowed them to think for themselves and be worse Catholics and better people. Setting aside the Book itself and what I think of its purpose, as a broad representation of art/culture and its power, absolutely. Its beauty and significance as something worth preserving at any cost is something I can get on board with. Kells can be built and endure and serve as a home for generations of monks and abbots, but the Book is the only heritage that is going to outlast all of them.
I'll echo praise for the animation, and wholeheartedly agree with Shane about the capital-N Nature thread being just that and not some muddled, tired, environmental message. There are plenty of themes, maybe too many for how short the movie is. The Vikings as completely Other-ed entities would be uncomfortable if they were any other group, but as an inexorable force that can't be stopped, I thought it worked. Overall, I'm at a solid B+, with the barrier to entry being what the movie was asking of me. If I'm unmoved by the destruction of the abbey and agitated by the Book's in-movie purpose, then the film is only going to work as metaphor and will keep me at a distance.
I know we're already on In a World, but I can't let this slide by. WOW! I did not know you hated Irish Catholicism that much Kissel. A lot of us now have had "barrier to entry" movies b/c we hate the world we're being dropped into - you here, me with "Don Jon," and Shane with "Frances Ha" come to mind.
Delete"Additionally, monasteries and convents are some of the stupidest institutions known to man, so when one gets burned to the ground by rampaging Vikings, it's a general good. It unleashes the intellect and manpower out into the world that used to be trapped inside."
That's a bold statement. I always felt that monestaries were a sort of patronage for intellectual work to flourish. We got some great secular benefits from monestaries after all. Champagne was first made in a monestary. The debits & credits accounting system was also invented in a monestary. I think they had a positive in that they were rarely the target of attack in wars until pagans came through.
I would argue that anything good that came out of monastic life was in spite of the society that established it and not because of it. In other words, we have champagne and some forms of modern economics and probably other things because of intelligent groups of men who happened to also be monks. They were so prevalent because of feudal economies and political systems that forced second and third sons into monasteries, while everything was reinforced by the Church.
DeleteWould gladly welcome discussion about this, as dark ages and middle ages Europe is not a period of history I know enough about, especially since it informs so much of my favorite period of history, Revolutionary France.
As far as Ireland is concerned, that place was a shadow theocracy for most of the 20th century, and it's only been recently, with the end of the Troubles and the exposure of so many predatory priests and brothers that the Church has been pushed closer to its proper place in a democratic society. Abortion is still illegal there, and divorce will celebrate its twentieth anniversary of Irish legality... next year. I would challenge you to read the Cloyne report and then come to any other conclusion that the Church in Ireland was a monstrous institution deserving of the utmost criminal punishment all the way up the bureaucratic ladder. There's no reason to think it hasn't always been such.
There is not excuse for any modern abuses of the Catholic Church. None. Anyone who defends those abuses is perpetuating the abuses and living in willful ignorance.
DeleteI do have two points of contention.
1. Ireland's laws are different. Yes. So what? They're a different country founded on different principles. Because we live in the most free country of all time, we tend to want to apply this principle to other countries and cultures. We apply our laws to theirs. However, there are just differences out there that are not good or bad. They just are. Of course there are human rights violations, but I don't think preventing a divorce from being legalized is a human rights violation (and this isn't a truly subjective thing either). So holding that law against another country is a bit pretentious in my opinion.
2. Blaming the Catholic Church for the deplorable conditions of the Dark Ages is like blaming the symptom for the disease. This was simply a different era in man. We were at a different intellectual and empathetic level of being. This is a time when surviving to the age of 30 was fucking hard to do. It was chaos and everyone was scrambling for stability and control. Life was just plain grim and violence and death was a normal part. The Catholic Church of the time was a product of the time, it didn't cause more violence. If it wasn't the Catholic Church, it would have been under another banner. So holding violence that was normal at the time against them (again using our current values) is a mistake and lacks context.
With the Catholic Church in Ireland, I'm ignorant on the subject. Sounds like they're bonkers and got what they had coming to them. I would think a more modern equivalent is probably the Taliban? Regardless, Kissel brings up a fair point that if it was that way in a more "forward-thinking" time globally, it was more than likely always that way. I don't think Kissel is arguing that different is bad and I think his point essentially echos what Shane said and that there were clear human rights violations in play.
DeleteKissel, my major point about the monestaries was more of what did you expect all these smart people to do? Or a better way to put it might be this: would they have had the necessary time to create these things if they didn't have this patronage and relative degree of safety? Sure they did some prarying and probably did some farming, but I would think a monk has a solid amount of free time to create. I don't know where else in Medievel Europe that luxury was afforded to a person outside of actual patronage.
Shane - I have no proof to back this up, but I would think making divorce illegal leads to increased domestic violence, murder, and suicide. Some people get desperate after all.
Also, I have to agree that it's impossible to blame a single entity for the Dark Ages. Not a whole lot is known about it. So little is known in fact, there's a wacky hypothesis out there that the years 600-900 didn't even happen and it's a Church cover up. Seriously, how did we get out of the Dark Ages? I have no clue.
Kissel - speaking of the French Revolution... You excited for Assassin's Creed Unity?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phantom_time_hypothesis
DeleteI have no idea if the legality of divorce correlates with increased domestic violence, etc. Probably no way to tell.
DeleteInteresting this happening here at Emory. They've basically shut down all of social Greek life due to sexual assaults. Emory (super liberal) and another university that is super liberal (can't recall the name) lead the leagues in sexual assaults. This seems odd because they're liberal ("progressive") campuses. But it makes sense because it's places like Emory that actually encourage victims to come forward. I could see that being the case with the marriage issue.
Though I had assumed that during recent times in Ireland, you could leave your spouse, just not divorce them.
If the Dark Ages are defined as the fall or Rome to Charlemagne, and the Middle Ages are from Charlemagne to the Renaissance or maybe the Reformation, then I'm referring to the Middle Ages, when the Church was giving its stamp of approval to every monarchy and enabling the whole process.
DeleteOne of the most intriguing aspects of history is why trends emerge when they do. An even more intriguing aspect is why those same trends don't emerge earlier. Institutions in general resist change, and the more powerful the institution, the more powerful the resistance. There have been few organizations more powerful than the Church in the Middle Ages. They were above every civic and governmental organization. Innovation in technology and thinking was slow during this time period, especially when compared to other parts of the world. Shane, nothing as large as universal societal norms just happens. There has to be several reasons for why anything is the way it is, and not a different way. This is a hypothesis because again, I wish I knew more about this time period, but root causes may very well rest within the Church, the organization that had the most to gain from the status quo. It's no coincidence that the end of their hegemony in Europe arose through religious competition from Protestants.
I mostly reject moral equivalence in the present day and throughout history. I'm not interested in arguments about, for instance, the founding fathers owning slaves because it was a different time and morality. The French revolutionaries were in the process of freeing their slaves, so it's not like they didn't know something like that was being talked about, to say nothing of attitudes amongst their Northern contemporaries. As far as Ireland, I would call the inability of a woman to get a safe abortion at any stage of pregnancy in her entire home country a human rights violation. Divorce is legal there now, but it's crazy that a person in a Western country could not go back on a decision they made in their late teens or early twenties. It was wrong in this country before the liberalization of divorce laws, and it was wrong through half of the 90's. When your laws are dictated by Catholic doctrine, you're living in a theocratic country. It's more justifiable to angry with the oppressor than the oppressed, so the Irish branch of the Catholic Church can go fuck itself.
DeleteI very briefly investigated this and couldn't find anything about historic Irish domestic violence rates, but it's going to be underreported for the same reason Emory sexual assault rates are seeing an increase. At Emory, the rate is likely the same as it's always been, but the institution is giving a shit. There's a good chance an Irish doctor in a 1980's Catholic hospital is going to counsel a battered spouse to patch things up at home, because if she doesn't want to press charges, then there's nothing to be done.
Back to the monasteries. If innovation in an entire society can only happen if a person pledges their entire life to obedience, poverty, and piety, that society is messed up. Phil, you're right about innovation happening because people have free time to experiment. But why did that condition have to happen at the expense of a man's freedom?
DeleteMy understanding of why the Dark Ages ended is because nations began to form with the backing of an organizing principle, that principle being universal worship of the Catholic god.
I hadn't heard of that Assassin's Creed game. Sounds pretty interesting, but it might be one of those things where inaccuracies keep me from enjoying it. I'll definitely check it out though when it comes out.
I think you're making a mistake in assuming that personal freedom should be the cornerstone of every nation. Who is to say that personal freedom should be any better than procreation and child-rearing? I think from a purely evolutionary utilitarian standpoint, procreation is a superior principle. In particular, when survival is a challenge and humanity's motivations were more base.
DeleteThe development of the strength of Christians began when Christians realized Jesus wasn't coming back any time soon and they began adopting the bastards and unwanted offspring that Roman (and other) aristocracy cast out. Bastards during those times had no legal rights and were seen not as family, but as potential hands in the cookie jar in case a family chose to legitimize them. The laws were pretty brutal towards them.
Christians began to adopt these children and instead of encouraging their followers to remain chaste, they decided that they should have as many children as they could. With more Christians out there, laws began to change (even including bastards). The Church becomes a type of family unit where wealth is pooled and distributed (though not always as it should have been because of course, power corrupts). The principle of procreation propelled Christians to power and lead to more children being taken care of, which is fine by me.
Of course, abortion interferes with that principle. There is such a thing in International Law that says that unwanted pregnancy is a human rights violation, but that has more to do with genocide (forcing differently women to get pregnant by raping them, therefor making their ethnicity extinct or the numbers severely lessened). The abortions in Ireland are hardly equal to that.
"Back to the monasteries. If innovation in an entire society can only happen if a person pledges their entire life to obedience, poverty, and piety, that society is messed up. Phil, you're right about innovation happening because people have free time to experiment. But why did that condition have to happen at the expense of a man's freedom?"
DeleteDon't we all pretty much agree that society was messed up to an extent in the dark and middle ages? I don't know... we'll hash this out over booze at Jared's rehearsal dinner.
Pretty pictures, otherwise bored to death. Didn't care enough to draw out metaphors for myself. The Abbot is supposed to be a leader but he's dumb enough to think just a wall will stop an invading army when they clearly have no defenses. It's an army coming to destroy not a Jehovah's witness knocking on the door and leave if you just don't answer. He should've been single minded about an elaborate escape plan to return to stash away resources for survival long enough to return to Kells after the Vikings left. Of course that would take away from the message of the story about walls and whatnot but I'm not entirely sure what that was supposed to be anyway. C-
ReplyDeleteI had to sit on The Secret of Kells for a day. I don’t really know how I felt about it at the time, and I still don’t to be honest. It’s a movie that gave us an interesting central plot struggle and a very satisfying and well-executed conclusion, but I don’t know who this movie is for. In fact, the entire time while watching it, I kept thinking “you know, this would make a really good puzzle/platform video game.” I think the movie ultimately has an identity crisis it doesn’t know how to resolve, leaving us with something very good that could have been great.
ReplyDeleteThe central plot involving the struggle for Brendan between the spiritual and physical is what ultimately drives the plot. We get the Abbott and Willie Nelson as clear foils in the tussle for Brendan’s future, and it works. We don’t like the Abbott, but at least we understand his motivations. We like Willie, but we understand why he could be detrimental to the goal of Kells. It’s a solid plot that works well, especially in the context of what I think is supposed to be a kid’s movie (more on that in a second).
Then we get the Viking attack, which goes… exactly how any normal person would expect it to go, and that was jarring to say the least. The complete destruction by the Vikings was pretty unexpected given the setup of the movie, but I’ll at least commend the story for going that direction. Really the only stretch was the Abbott surviving. The ending where we see the Abbott get to finally see the Book and understand its power was very satisfying, and a great way to bring everything together. I did like that the Vikings didn’t magically disappear either. They were still out there lurking, and the Book is treated as nothing more than a symbol as opposed to a magical item. It’s a very real ending for a movie that could have easily copped out and gone for the magical victory given some of its setup.
And that setup is where things lost me a little bit. There’s a lot of goofy, slapstick stuff that is clearly meant to entertain kids. It was probably funny for the kids, but then you get into a story that doesn’t seem totally kid-friendly. It’s like they made the movie and then decided to add some goofy shit on top of it. I wish they would have committed to a direction, but ultimately it didn’t happen. That’s probably why I had never heard of this movie – no one knew who the audience was.
I’ll just echo the thoughts on the art style. Also loved it.
I enjoyed Secret of the Kells well enough. I don’t think it’s a movie made for me, but it still held my interest. I liked the plot, I loved the art style, I’m still not sure who this was made for.
+ Strong central plot
+ Ballsy ending that works
+ Art style is fantastic
- Kiddie humor seemed out of place
- Who is this movie for?
Grade: B-