The Secret of Kells

The Secret of Kells, a beau­ti­ful­ly-observed ani­mat­ed film that man­ages to be both charm­ing and macabre, details the sto­ry of monas­tic novice Brendan’s (Evan McGuire) strug­gle to keep the famed Book of Kells alive in the shad­ow of immi­nent Viking attack on all he knows of a civilised world, deep inside the walls of Kells.

As a visu­al rep­re­sen­ta­tion of a boy’s nascent intel­lec­tu­al auton­o­my and the pow­er of imag­i­na­tion, it is a treat that brings to mind a vast, eclec­tic mix of ref­er­ences; from Ger­man expres­sion­ism (the chiaroscuro and sharp angu­lar­i­ty of the Viking raid could have been in an FW Mur­nau film) to Miyaza­ki via Lug­wig Bemel­mans’ Made­line by way of Disney’s The Lion King and even Wil­lo the Wisp.

The atten­tion to detail is impec­ca­ble in both back­ground and fore­ground; in the labyrinthine for­est that holds enchant­ment and ter­ror in equal mea­sure (which, cou­pled with the face­less hor­ror of the maraud­ing Vikings, makes Secret a kids film that pro­vides both chills and thrills), in the melan­cho­lia of a wood­land nymph, the sub­tle anthro­po­mor­phism of cats, wolves and geese, and the stun­ning­ly realised envi­rons of Kells itself.

Thanks to the fact that Secret is almost entire­ly hand-drawn, the film is imbued with an old-fash­ioned, arti­san feel that lends itself well to the peri­od of the piece. The Book of Kells is a real arte­fact – cel­e­brat­ed for its lav­ish illus­tra­tions, the man­u­script con­tains the four Gospels in Latin. The preser­va­tion of the Book becomes inex­tri­ca­bly linked to Brendan’s mat­u­ra­tion, and as the lynch­pin of his nar­ra­tive, it far more suc­cess­ful than as a sto­ry in and of itself. Indeed, Brendan’s com­ing-of-age is intri­cate­ly realised.

The strained def­er­ence he shows his stern, mono­ma­ni­a­cal uncle (Bren­dan Glee­son) slow­ly gives way to rebel­lion, and the grad­ual ero­sion of his respect for dog­mat­ic, inflex­i­ble author­i­ty leads him to his enlight­en­ment. But ulti­mate­ly it is his glo­ri­ous­ly ripe imag­i­na­tion, the most cher­ished rem­nant of his child­hood, that saves him and the Book.