“Children deserve not lesser films but greater ones because their imaginations can take in larger truths and bigger ideas.” So film critic Roger Ebert wrote in his review of 1994’s The Secret of Roan Inish, a story of a young Irish girl who learns that her family tree includes a few selkies, the magical half-human, half-seal creatures of Irish folklore. As The Wizard of Oz, The Iron Giant, and the best works of Pixar and Studio Ghibli attest, however, when made well, these children’s films resonate just as deeply with adults.
As does Song of the Sea, the new Oscar-nominated animated film from director Tomm Moore. It creates a splendid and disturbing world in which children triumph, not through naïveté or some immaculate purity, but through courage, love, and an openness to that which they cannot easily understand. (The film is Song of the Sea currently playing now at the Bow Tie Criterion Cinemas, 86 Temple St.)
Like Roan Inish, Song of the Sea is immersed in Irish folklore. Ben and Saoirse live with their lonely father in a lighthouse perched like a seagull at the edge of a cliff in coastal Ireland. Their granny disapproves of their isolation and convinces her son to let her raise the grandchildren in a nearby city. When Ben conspires to escape his urban captivity, he quickly learns that his mute sister is in fact a selkie: a human when on land, a seal when in water, and possessed with fantastic powers that could help the children find their way back to their coastal home. But this revelation of Saoirse’s true nature also shines a light on a more sinister magical world, haunted by a witch who might be responsible for their father’s deep sadness and their mother’s mysterious disappearance at the time of Saoirse’s birth.
Moore’s film is very much a Wizard of Oz movie. A troubled character is lost in a fantasy world, alternately wonderful and terrifying, that offers a coherent explanation for a real-world trauma that cannot be faced on its own terms. Though wrapped in mythology, the core of Song of the Sea is very human: A boy longs to understand an inexplicable sorrow that has beset his family — an absent mother, a depressed father, a silent sister — and can only be resolved through reunion, and a candid look at what went wrong and why.
Moore discovers in Irish folklore more than characters, tropes, and historical context; he also finds a style, at once playful, somber, and wonderfully dense. Much like his first film — The Secret of Kells, which told the story of a medieval illuminated manuscript through 2D animation, ornate scribbling, and bursts of color that seemed to seep from one frame to the next — Song of the Sea establishes its tone through its animators’ pencils.
Flattened backgrounds filled with circular etchings, rough strokes of blue and green that submerge the frame in water even when Ben and Siorse are safely above ground, all dislocate the characters from their surroundings. The hand-drawn animation is a refreshing break from the incessant 3D and CGI so popular in today’s cinema, children’s or not. Its visible lines and texture evoke a vulnerability often lost in more sleek and mechanical effects.
Song of the Sea works toward an explicit message that emotional honesty is crucial for any family’s survival, but the film is far from didactic. It is grand, adventurous, and ambiguous, rich in detail, replete with the “larger truths and bigger ideas” that would do Ebert proud. It is a welcome addition to the delightful niche of Irish folklore films, and a solid example of great children’s cinema.
Song of the Sea is playing now at the Bow Tie Criterion Cinemas, 86 Temple St.
