Duckyworth's Thoughts: Song of the Sea ~ 2014

Directors: Tomm Moore

Rating: PG

My Rating:

I thought it would be fitting to put the first sentence of this review into Gaelic, because the film I’m reviewing today is an Irish animated film made by director Tomm Moore, who directed another Irish animated film I reviewed a while ago – The Secret of Kells. To this day, I strongly believe it’s one of those films that EVERYONE should have a chance to see at least once. As well as being a hand-drawn animation film, which is sadly very rare in this day and age, it treats its audience maturely with its darker moments while working in quite a few light-hearted moments in there, to the point of which the tone and style could be seen as being akin to a Studio Ghibli film in places. It’s got lovely use of Irish folklore and legends, memorable characters, beautiful Irish folk music composed by Coraline’s Bruno Coulais and some STUNNING animation. Even if the production problems with the film and the long production period (the film began production in 1998 but it wasn’t released until 2009 – nowhere near as bad as problems The Thief and the Cobbler suffered due to taking about 30 years to create) caused a few pacing problems and a bit of an abrupt ending, I appreciate that the film made a great compromise with the resources it had available and has since become one of my favourite animated films, and a film I feel deserves quite a bit more exposure than it gets. I gave a lot of praise to that film in the past, and after writing a Duckyworth’s Edits on the film last time detailing how my thoughts towards the film’s end and one character I used to dislike from the film have vastly improved, my praise towards the film has only improved with time.

With the praise I’ve given the film in the past, I was HYPED to see Tomm Moore’s next film, which I will be reviewing today. Sadly, during the film’s cinema run, I didn’t get a chance to see it, but I recently bought the film on DVD, and I can safely say it was WELL worth the wait. And considering how much I love The Secret of Kells, I can say that this film has impressed me by going ABOVE AND BEYOND its predecessor. If Secret of Kells is an animated gem, Song of the Sea is an animated MARVEL. So, without further ado, let’s get our Clannad songs ready and get ready to sing a….

SONG OF THE SEA.

In today’s family films being composed mainly of screeching chipmunks, Rob Schneider voiced polar bears (yeah, from the trailers alone, I can already tell that Norm of the North is going to suck when it comes out ), obnoxious sociopathic squirrels, an abundance of bad adaptations of classical cartoons, wolfaboo pandering sequels no-one asked for and WAY too many butt jokes, gross out jokes and toilet humour, it’s a warm relief to my heart that films like Song of the Sea, Inside Out, Big Hero 6, Frozen, Arashi No Yoru Ni, Secret of Kells, Coraline, ParaNorman, The Boxtrolls and many of my other favourite films from the past decade are helping to SHATTER the stupid illusion that people who say ‘animation is just for kids and therefore shouldn’t be taken seriously’ are following. One reason why children’s films SHOULD be taken seriously is because children have much more intelligence than people give them credit for, and if we keep showing them Alvin and the Chipmunks sequels, Alpha and Omega and The Nut Job every single time they go to the cinema, that’s all the poor things are GOING to get and therefore all they’ll WANT to watch as they grow up. One thing I love about my film reviews is that contrary to a big numbers of reviewers I watch and contrary to some comments people leave on my negative reviews, most of my reviews are POSITIVE, as I like to think that even with all of the TRIPE I review on Duckyworth’s Thoughts (especially those that have come out in the past decade), there is still a glimmering hope that we’re climbing out of the dark age of animation and back to a kind of renaissance akin to that which Disney had in the 90’s – a large number of animated family films I’ve reviewed from this decade have made it quite high onto my favourite films list. True, once in a while there’s a stinker like the Alpha and Omega sequels, The Nut Job, Walking with Dinosaurs the movie or The Good Dinosaur, but quite a few animated films I’ve seen and reviewed on here are either proving that there is still hope for family comedies if they’re written well (Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs and Hotel Transylvania 2, for example) or even harking back to the family films Don Bluth made and proving that family films can have darker atmospheres and themes in them and that children are smarter and deserve more respect than we think (Coraline, ParaNorman, The Boxtrolls and 9, for example). And Song of the Sea is another example of this, and a reason why I think the animation studio Cartoon Saloon has a potential to rival Laika Studios or even Pixar or Studio Ghibli if it plays it’s cards right.

This film began production almost IMMEDIATELY after Secret of Kells was released, and from the get go, I can say that as brilliant as Secret of Kells is, Tomm Moore seems to have improved from his first film. As well as some amazing use of Irish folklore and mythology, the film has improved in the pacing department from Secret of Kells, and possibly even in the animation and music areas as well. Just like with my thoughts towards Abbot Cellach in Secret of Kells changing after I thought about the film, there is a certain character that I thought I wouldn’t like at the start of the film, but throughout the film, his actions start to make more sense – and it’s one of the few films out there where I can’t think of a SINGLE character that I find unlikeable in it. I also feel the moral aspect of the film is slightly stronger, and it also makes the actions of the character fit more with the film’s moral. But okay, enough dilly-dallying, it’s about time to start the review.

The film starts at an already beautiful setting – an old lighthouse off the coast of Ireland, where a pod of seals is watching the lighthouse. Already, the setting is very beautiful indeed – it almost looks a little bit like an illustration from a storybook. In the lighthouse, a young boy named Ben and his mother Bronagh, who is expecting a second child, are painting a mural on the wall of Ben’s bedroom – depicting a Selkie – a creature that is half human, half seal – singing for the faeries of the world to return home across the sea. Oh, and I think I’ve already found who this film’s equivalent of Pangur Ban (the cat from Secret of Kells) is going to be – Ben’s sheepdog Cú. Take it from me, Cú is just ADORABLE, both as a puppy and as a grown dog later. While they’re painting, Bronagh is teaching her son an Irish song – and while doing so, it seems to be summoning strange bright lights outside. Oh no, it’s CROM CRUACH! Okay, it’s not Crom Cruach, but it looks similar to the bright lights in the scene where Brendan tried to take the creature’s eye from it. Ben’s father comes in – and you’ll never guess who voices him. Brendan Gleeson – that’s right, Abbot Cellach from The Secret of Kells and Mad Eye Moody from the Harry Potter films! Tomm Moore really likes Brendan Gleeson’s voice, doesn’t he? And I don’t blame him. As Ben gets into bed, Bronagh gives him an old seashell flute which used to belong to her mother, and he can quite literally hear the sea when he puts it to his ear. You know, I never really understood that saying – every single time I put a shell to my ear, I never heard anything. Ben is excited for his sibling to be born and wants to be a good big brother to them, but it seems that Bronagh is starting to go into labour, and as she goes out the door and her hair TURNS WHITE, she says ‘I’m sorry’ to Ben… Ooh dear – at least the film cut away before it got any worse, like with Cross’ labour scene in Ginga Nagareboshi Gin, but every single time I come across a character going into labour in my reviews, it’s often a grim portent of scenes to come. And it is pretty sad hearing Ben say ‘Mom? …..Mom?’ as she leaves…. For the last time.

Yep, YEARS pass since that scene, six years in fact, and Conor is a broken man, Saoirse has yet to utter a single word, and Ben has grown resentful of his sister. Ben, now voiced by David Rawle, is sitting with an older Cú, sketching an illustration of the giant Mac Lir and his dogs. As Cú goes for a run on the beach, another cute character appears, who strangely reminds me a bit of Aisling from Secret of Kells – Ben’s younger sister Saoirse. Aside from having some fascinating powers, she conveys so much emotion through her facial expressions alone despite the fact that she does not speak. There's a great sense of innocence to her as no matter what adversity she's faced with, Saoirse brings warmth to nearly every scene she's in. Curious at what her brother is drawing, Saoirse’s loud breathing puts off Benn, who says ‘for someone who can’t talk, you sure make a lot of noise’, and then he pushes her off the overturned boat they’re sitting on and shuts her out as he shows Cú a drawing of the Great Seanachai…… Wow…. That’s a tad harsh, Ben. Saoirse, intrigued by the sea and the seals that are observing her, starts to walk out to the sea, entranced by them, not noticing Ben calling for her to come back. As Ben is pulled in by Cú by his lead, he seems to have a strong fear of the sea, and after struggling to get out the water, he forces Saoirse back inside. Wow – looks like we have someone else who shares Finn from Adventure Time’s fear of the sea… but we won’t be seeing any of THIS in the film - www.youtube.com/watch?v=jt4E3J… .

Ben’s father Conor, now a grieving man, is staring out the sea when Ben brings Saoirse up to the top of the lighthouse to tell him about what happened, but Conor instead takes Saoirse inside. Now, it’s made clear that Conor is a very distraught and depressed father, and even though I will admit he doesn’t make the best decisions at times, I can at least SEE why he may be making mistakes – due to his depression – any neglect on his part isn’t intentional, it’s due to his state of mind being a warped shell of what it originally was before Bronagh left. It’s a much better example of a parent who makes mistakes than the unfortunately common abusive parents who make the mistakes for NO REASON or reasons that AREN’T forgivable – like Lord Portly-Rind, Prancer, Perry Babcock or DENETHOR. And also, with Ben constantly being unfair to Saoirse, I can see why Conor may not see eye to eye with him – hell, I would if one of my children was being mean to the other, while never telling me the reason why. Ben looks out at the sea, getting misty-eyed at the sight, but gets snapped out of his stare by a foghorn from a ferry boat being captained by a ferryman simply known as Ferry Dan (even though I can’t say much about him, he does show a good resemblance to a character later on, and I do love his design, like I do with every other character in this film ) – holding Ben and Saoirse’s Granny Fidelma. Fidelma often comes by to try and make Ben and Saoirse move to her home in Dublin, a place that she thinks is a safer home for them.

After Granny Fidelma gets Saoirse all dolled up, making her look like Blossom from the Powerpuff Girls, as her birthday suit, she goes downstairs to get the birthday food ready. Saoirse hears the wind blowing through the seashell in Ben’s room, which catches her attention and has her mesmerised, but Ben storms into the room, protective of the shell that Bronagh gave him – one of the more understandable moments where Ben may be angry at Saoirse. Granny Fidelma may be a bit overbearing in places and she does constantly try to get Ben and Saoirse to move to the city with her, believing it’s safer than at the lighthouse, but I do like the next scene, where she brings Saoirse some special presents, including some interesting sounding tea and cakes that are said to be good for the voice…. Which Saoirse feeds to Cú, who doesn’t really like them either. She sets up a camera to take a birthday picture, which Ben ruins by pushing Saoirse’s face into the birthday cake…. Okay, pushing her off the boat was one thing, but now SHOVING her face into her own birthday cake? Let’s just say that this character was starting to get on my nerves the first time I watched this film at this point – but my feelings towards the character changed as it went on, don’t worry. Now, let me just make this perfectly clear – by this point in the film, I was not liking Ben. While I did always feel there may be a reason why he’s acting so confrontational against his younger sister and to be honest, ten minutes into the film is a bit early to start disliking a character, but the first ten minutes of screentime a character has CAN help to make a good first impression. I felt that he was just acting too mean spirited towards her and was coming off as….well, to be honest, kind of rotten to her. Even though my feelings towards Ben improves later on, I thought he was acting too hostile towards his younger sister at this point in the film. But as I said, the reason they reveal later on for his hostility makes sense – also, I feel the fact that Ben is a CHILD makes some of his actions more believable. I mean, I know that the saying ‘children can be mean’ doesn’t excuse some actions I’ve seen from child characters in the past, but considering the circumstances behind Ben’s emotions, what he associated Saoirse with and the fact that Conor is a broken, grieving man who lacks the self-confidence to intervene help makes the writing on this family conflict feel a bit better. Speaking of which – I always think this could have been worse – it could have been Davey Stone’s bitter behaviour from Eight Crazy Nights.

Understandably angry with his son sabotaging the birthday party like that, Conor sends him off to his room, and later that night, he heads out to the mainland to spend the anniversary of his wife’s passing with his friends at the Irish pub to try and cope with his sorrows, to which Granny Fidelma remarks that he shouldn’t keep dwelling on sad memories. As her father leaves for the mainland, Saoirse tries to read a story with Ben, but Ben comes up a story of his own to SCARE his sister into leaving. This is the story of Mac Lir the giant and his mother Macha the Owl Witch, who stole his feelings and turned him to stone. According to the story, all the faeries are afraid to come out on Hallowe’en night because if they do, Macha and her owls will make them suffer the same fate. Now – here’s the first action from Ben that helped me warm up to him a bit more. Saoirse, scared of the story, runs under her bed, but Ben says ‘It’s just one of Mom’s stories, Saoirse’, and then gives a look that makes me think that he’s realised that maybe he was acting a bit too harsh to her. Something about that sad look he gives when he looks at Saoirse in itself, coupled with the pre-credits scene, helped me realise that Ben isn’t a complete bad egg and there is a good kid in there – there’s just something that happened to him that made him act resentful towards his sister.

That night, Saoirse takes the seashell from Ben’s room and starts playing music on it, which summons more of those beautiful lights from outside. Through a very pretty scene with a clever use of Saoirse’s shadow resembling a seal, they lead her to a key which opens an old abandoned chest with a beautiful white coat inside it. Trying it on, Saoirse follows the lights outside, all the way down the beach, where the seals are waiting for her. And yes, the seals are adorable. As she swims out into the water, she herself turns into…. One of the cutest seals I have ever seen. I know that I use the word ‘beautiful’ a lot in this review, but I can’t help it, there are just so many fantastically animated moments in this film that it would be difficult to mention one time when I thought the animation could be improved. The visuals are jaw-droppingly beautiful, simplistic in design, true to the Celtic roots of the story, and should almost be listed as a character in and of themselves. In a similar manner to a Miyazaki film, this story simply couldn't have been told as well with a different art crew, the dynamic is so tied into the feel and flow of the tale. The score is, similarly, simplistic and heartfelt. It doesn't overshadow anything. There's no bombast or leitmotif to be found, but the music is so integral to the plot that you can't imagine the movie without it. Or not even with more of it, the balance is so fine.

As Saoirse swims with the seals, the lights spread all throughout the land, and it even catches Granny Fidelma’s attention, waking her up from her dream, making her sense that something is wrong. She goes down to the beach, and finds Saoirse, washed up on the shore, taking her back to the lighthouse – where it looks like she now has a bad cold. Granny Fidelma, fearing for the childrens’ safety, says she’ll take the children back with her to Dublin. Fearing for the safety of Saoirse, and associating the coat with the thing that led to Bronagh departing, Conor takes her white coat, the chest that held it and the key that opens it and throws it into the sea. Once again, this seems to be similar to Abbot Cellach’s actions – while what the character may be doing may not be the best course of action, I can now see that the character is only trying to protect their loved ones. It’s the same thing with Granny Fidelma and the film’s villain, who is revealed later. I really do like it when a character makes me feel that while they may make mistakes in their actions, they’re only trying their hardest to protect those near and dear to them and may be pressured by what everyone expects of them into committing their actions.

The next morning, in another scene that actually made me feel bad for Ben, Conor packs up Ben and Saoirse’s things, and Granny Fidelma tells Ben to come with her to Dublin. However, Ben doesn’t want to leave Cú behind… anyone who’s had to leave a dog behind while they go anywhere will tell you how hard it is, and I feel that it would be ESPECIALLY hard for a child. Also, take a look at Conor and Granny Fidelma in this scene – the frowns on their faces make it clear to me that they don’t WANT this to happen, but feel that it’s all for the best. And the fact that they’re not taking Cú with them is, in Fidelma’s opinion, for Cú’s benefit as well, because a big dog like Cú would only be terrified in a big city like Dublin. The car pulls away, but it looks like that rope isn’t enough to hold a big sheepdog like Cú, as he breaks from the rope and tries to run for them, but is left to bark at the ferry leaving. Or at least it looks like it – as he jumps off the pier and swims for it! Okay, Cú definitely has a lot of tendencies similar to my late dog Maddy – I can already see quite a few. As they drive towards Dublin, Ben only wants to get back home, so he starts making a map as they drive past certain Irish landmarks. The music here reminds me a little bit of the music I heard in the PS4 videogame Journey – an equally beautiful piece of media. Speaking of which – Bruno Coulais came back to the music team on this film, teaming up with Irish folk band Kila – and as I said, the music almost reminds me of a track you’d hear out of Journey at times. And considering how much I LOVE the music in Journey, from Bruno Coulais’ work and Irish folk music (like the band Clannad I mentioned earlier), the music in this film is a five course feast for the ears.

They arrive in Dublin, where it looks like the children of the city are ready to go trick-or-treating for Hallowe’en – hopefully they won’t come across Lock, Shock and Barrel. But in Fidelma’s house, which reminds quite a bit of one of my late grandmother’s houses, the atmosphere seems much more rustic and quieter. So quiet that even Saoirse gets bored of it. : She walks to Fidelma’s cupboard and sees a coat with a white fur rim, which reminds her of the Selkie coat at home, and while wearing it, blows the shell again, waking up the strange creatures in the middle of the roundabout, but also alerting some… owls to her presence. Oooh dear, does this mean what I think it does? Trying to imitate the feel of the sea, Saoirse, wearing the coat, sits in the bathroom and uses the shower head… which, needless to say, angers Fidelma, as this coat is her best one, and she sends the children to bed. She goes outside to bin her ruined coat, but the three strange creatures from the roundabout, dressed up as humans, take the coat, believing it to be the Selkie coat, while Ben sneaks out of the window to start his journey back home, with Saoirse following him, and the creatures following her.

Now, I do like this one scene with Ben and Saoirse having an argument – Ben is going to take Saoirse back to Fidelma’s house, but Saoirse, in a scene which I will admit is kind of satisfying, as Ben did…. Kind of deserve it, kicks Ben, which makes them come to a compromise. Ben will let Saoirse follow him home, as long as she stays on a short lead close to him. Something about Ben’s attitude here reminds a bit of Aisling, now I think of it – the way that Aisling in Secret of Kells teasingly tried to scare Brendan and says ‘Wait until you see MY forest’. Ben notices the bright lights coming from an old withered flower, but the three faeries from earlier take Saoirse to their home before the owls that have been following them notice. The faeries pull Saoirse into their secret home – an old sewer pipe leading to a place with a LOT of stone statues of petrified faeries. By the way – I really do like the attention to detail on the drawing the faeries made on the sewer pipe Ben crawls through – the drawings are almost an exact replica of the drawings Ben and Bronagh drew at the start of the film, which starts to make Ben believe that maybe those stories his mother told him weren’t JUST stories. The three faeries believe that the old coat that Saoirse was wearing is in fact a Selkie coat that will give Saoirse her powers, and that if Saoirse sings, the Song of the Sea will help them and their brethren to travel home to Tír na nÓg – one of the names of the Otherworld in Irish folklore, which can only be reached by entering ancient burial mounds or caves, or by going under water or across the sea. Speaking of Irish folklore, this next scene is one of my favourites. The three faeries, named Spud, Mossy and Lug, who have set up a home underneath the roundabout made of old rubbish from the city, try to raise Saoirse’s spirits by singing, as they believe that this will make her song even better. And during this, they sing the Irish folk song Dúlamán – a folk song which I know quite a bit as it has been sung by Clannad, one of my favourite folk bands. It’s a really catchy little folk song, which interestingly enough is named after the Irish practice of gathering seaweed for various purposes, and I do feel myself tapping my feet during this scene. It seems that these faeries have been solitary for a long time, as the rest of the faeries have been turned into stone for quite a while – thinking that the statues are telling them the lyrics that they forget, when it’s in fact Ben. Unfortunately, Saoirse still can’t talk, as Ben tells them, as well as telling them that the real Selkie coat is back at the lighthouse where they came from.

But before they can leave… those owls from earlier storm in, trying to take Saoirse away. Is it funny how I find these owls, who never have any line of dialogue more interesting and somehow more threatening than those owls in Legend of the Guardians? The music here is also really nice – sounding like something you would hear out of one of the better action scenes from Brave. Ben helps the faeries to save Saoirse, but as Ben and Saoirse escape, the owls turn the three faeries to stone by sucking some kind of spiritual essence from them into the jars they’re carrying. It seems that Saoirse’s playing of the shell breaks the jars and temporarily brings the faeries back to life, who warn them they must get back to the lighthouse and find the Selkie coat before it’s too late.

They come across a bus to try and get back home, and… wouldn’t you know it, AISLING from The Secret of Kells has a cameo here. When the view cuts to all the passengers on the bus, you can see Aisling sitting on the bus on the second row from the back on the left hand side. Saoirse continues to blow her shell as the bus drives along the road, and sees the lights following a path off the road, so she stops the bus. Now, see, THIS is one part where I understand Ben’s frustration more – if you were thrown off a bus in the middle of nowhere and didn’t know where to go, I think you may be a bit annoyed too. Besides, I think if you get Aisling to help, she could turn into a wolf and help your speed back home. I do like Saoirse’s annoyed expression when she rolls her eyes at Ben though – and in a good bit of role reversal, Saoirse is the one leading Ben rather than the other way around – even pulling on the cord in defiance when Ben keeps holding her back. I know I haven’t really mentioned it that much that far during the review, as I’ve talked about the animation quite a few times, but I’d like to give a few praises to the film’s backgrounds – I still really like my comment earlier that they almost look like something out of a storybook, with a mixture of a simplistic and a slightly surreal design – similar to one of Tomm Moore’s inspirations, the backgrounds in The Thief and the Cobbler. Just like in The Secret of Kells, the backgrounds almost look like something straight out of an ancient tapestry – it almost looks like what it could look like if you ever shrunk down and walked among the expertly woven cloth, with some extremely lovely details here and there – like the x-ray shot of the badger’s nest in one scene where Ben and Saoirse are walking down a hill.

That is, until Ben tries taking charge again – but I do like the reason he comes up with – the owls were most likely drawn to them by the lights coming from the shell, so he tries to come up with a quieter path. They head into a deep dense forest (with a design that almost reminds me of the final scene in Fantasia with the trees looking like gothic arches ), and they end up getting lost. Luckily, a certain sheepdog comes into the forest, bounding in and licking Saoirse and Ben. Daww, this dog’s just like a big bounding pillow, isn’t he?

Cú leads them quite a distance, running past perhaps the most beautiful set of electric pylons I’ve ever seen (seen as I live in a suburban village that has quite a few electric pylons dotted around, I can tell you that they’re not the prettiest things around, but something about the designs of them look really pretty here – and maybe even a tad foreboding with them taking on the shape of an owl if you look closely) but Saoirse starts running out of energy. Unfortunately, without her coat, Saoirse is rapidly growing deathly ill, shown by her hair….. turning white. Ben, in one of the best moments where he starts acting more like a supportive older brother, realises what this means, and lifts Saoirse onto Cú, and they walk a bit of a slower pace along some well designed shots of the countryside. Coming from the United Kingdom myself, and understanding that Ireland’s countryside is similar to ours, this is a VERY well drawn shot of countryside which I can personally say looks JUST like an animated portrayal of it. I also like the way that they animated the fur on Cú’s head being so long it covers his eyes, and when he lifts up his ears or when he’s running. An ill Saoirse falls off Cú, and Ben carries Saoirse on his back  They take shelter from the starting rain in a sacred well, after going through many a hiker’s greatest enemy – STINGING NETTLES. OUCH – I know how hard it is going through those, let me tell you.

They take shelter in the intricately designed sacred well, with offerings and holy images dotting the walls. Going out into the rain, Saoirse gets some dock leaves for Ben, and it’s in this scene where I really, really see how well written these two are as sibling protagonists. Despite the fact that they may not see eye to eye at times, deep down, they do truly care for each other. Throughout the film, Saoirse and Ben must work together, and Ben learns to let go of his grief and sadness and concentrate on protecting her. Saoirse suddenly notices that the bright lights from the shell go into the well, and after giving Ben the shell, in perhaps a very sombre move where she realises that she may not come back, and dives into the well. Cú follows suit, and considering the fact that C most likely has the moving force of a runaway train, considering his bulk and speed , Ben gets pulled in after him. After swimming through Crom Cruach’s lair for a bit, Ben becomes unattached from Cú, and ends up in a deep cave that almost looks like something out of Atlantis: The Lost Empire. Ben paddles his way through the cave on a raft he comes across, but unbeknownst to him, Saoirse has been captured by the owls – in another shot which makes me realise just how better made the owls in this film are than those in Legend of the Guardians: Owls of Ga’Hoole. He comes across the Great Seanachai, who looks like Getafix the Druid on a REALLY bad hair day…. Which is fitting, because Seanachie are actually traditional Irish storytellers/historians. In ancient Celtic culture, history and laws were not written down in writing, but rather memorized in long poems which were recited by bards – a cultural tradition that is echoed by these people. The Great Seanachai carries all the history of the world in the extremely long hair, with each individual hair holding an individual person’s story – he has to keep the hair on his body as he has no memory himself besides the stories he holds. If a hair snaps, the story is forever lost. Hmm…. Is it me, or do those hairs look a bit like the life threads that the Fates in Hercules cut when a person’s life is quite literally cut short? Hmm… maybe the Seanachai is connected to the Fates in some way – would make sense. After tripping over one of his hairs (in a way that makes me realise that he reminds me a little bit of the old prisoner from Hunchback of Notre Dame – ‘I’m free, I’m free – *trips* dang it’ , he turns into a ball and lets him down. He shows Ben one hair, which holds the story of the giant Mac Lir, who I just realised looks a bit like a human version of Asgore from Undertale… And actually, he and Conor hold quite a few similarities – his heart was broken by a great tragedy, and his anguish was so great he cried a whole ocean. His mother Macha sent her owls to stop the rising waters by taking his suffering away – but the action turned Mac Lir into stone. Seanachai takes delight in the bright lights – which he names Saoilse - okay, I tried looking up this term online but couldn’t find anything. To what I can imagine, seen as these lights are shown to come out of living plantlife (like the lone flower in Dublin where Ben saw them), I can imagine that these little lights are like the life force of the land, connecting everything together. Unfortunately, they quickly fade after being woken, which means that Saoirse must be in danger…. In fact, after consulting his hairs, Seanachai says that Macha has her, close to turning to stone. Without the Selkie coat, she can’t sing and will turn into stone. Seanachai gives Ben a long hair, which will lead him to the surface. 

But upon following the hair, he finds something else…. And the thing that I mentioned originally made me forgive Ben for his actions at the start of the film, because I feel it makes them make more sense and put them into context with the pre-credits scene. He comes across a vision of his mother, and those words he said to his mom upon promising to be the best big brother in the world. The vision also shows what happens next – Bronagh, in her gravely ill state went to the sea with the Selkie coat, in an act which she says is the only way to save the baby, and was seemingly washed away by the sea. Conor jumped in to try and save her (also, props to Brendan Gleeson here – the emotion in his voice here is spot on), but only found the newborn Saoirse wearing the Selkie coat. Ben came across Conor with Saoirse, and Ben started associating her with the disappearance of her mother, and blamed her for it. You know what, thanks to this scene, I really started welling up when I paid attention to the way the expression on Ben’s face is drawn in this scene, leading to him crying, realizing how unfair he's been to Saoirse all these years – it’s such an emotional scene, and like with Hyena from Ginga Nagareboshi Gin and Sullivan from Secret of NIMH, it’s an example of how one scene can make me feel legitimate emotions for a character that I may have been indifferent to early on….

After seeing this, the hairs part to reveal a passage to the surface leading out of one of the trees in the Hinterlands in Nightmare Before Christmas – with Macha’s cottage in the middle of a suitably gloomy lake, with petrified faeries, who still maintain some of their consciousness and wish him luck and warn him to be careful of the jars inside the cottage. That one shot of Ben overlooking the cottage in the distance is one of my favourite shots in the film. By the way, I do like the way that there are EXTREMELY powerful thunderclouds overhead – when Macha has been taking emotions, they’ve taken on a different form inside the jar depending on what they are – and for sorrow, they have been shown to be little thunderclouds. It actually reminds me a bit of the way Starlight Glimmer held Cutie Marks to make everyone the same. Also, it turns out that Macha herself looks and sounds very familiar to Granny Fidelma, even having the same voice actress, Fionnula Flannagan (Mrs Dilber in the Jim Carrey version of A Christmas Carol) – except combined a bit with Yubaba from Spirited Away and the Witch of the Wastes from Howl’s Moving Castle. In fact… I just noticed that quite a few of the characters in the film show similarities and voices with the figures of folklore dotted throughout the film. Macha tried to ease her son's inconsolable grief in much the same way that Fidelma tries to help her son end his grief by showing him that living in the lighthouse is surrounding himself in the past and its sadness. I like this fact that people in the ‘real’ world have similarities to characters in the ‘other’ world – it reminds me similar elements in stories like the Wizard of Oz. In this film, it’s a nice touch in a tale designed to suggest that we’re slowly losing our ability to recognize the magic that surrounds us at all times. Macha’s true intentions are to help everyone – when her son, Mac Lir, suffered from a broken heart, she took away his suffering, turning him into the small island near Ben's home. She is determined to do the same for everyone, even herself – to the point of which she’s been turned half to stone. Now, this brings up another thing I think is stronger in this film than Secret of Kells – how the film’s villain is handled. I liked how the Vikings in the Secret of Kells are portrayed as a force of nature, but I do prefer the way that Macha was written as a more sympathetic and three dimensional antagonist because of her motivations. She’s one of those characters like Starlight Glimmer from Friendship is Magic (believes that Cutie Marks only separate people and believes that as long as Cutie Marks exist true friendship can never exist as her differences to her childhood friend led to that friend breaking off all contact with her), Mr Freeze from Batman (wants to bring his critically ill wife back to life), Asgore from Undertale (wants to free his people, and even if the only way he can do it is to kill humans, he doesn’t even WANT violence, and is also doing it to avenge the death of his son), Chirin from Ringing Bell (wants to avenge his mother), Professor Callaghan from Big Hero 6 (wants to avenge his daughter) and N from Pokemon Black and White (wants to liberate Pokemon from bad trainers) – they have extremely good intentions, even if the way they go about it may be questionable. They are, in my opinion, much more three dimensional characters because of the fact that while they do go to extremes to try and achieve their aims, I feel that their original aims in the first place make their actions, and the characters themselves, much more sympathetic, three-dimensional and more interesting. Don’t get me wrong, if a villain is more of a force of nature, they have the potential to be brilliant as well (like King Sombra, Queen Chrysalis, Tirek, Professor Ratigan, General Woundwort, Judge Frollo and of course, Maleficent) but I do like a villain with more sympathetic intentions (which may even surpass the hero’s intentions) once in a while to balance it out.

She tells Ben that she knows of the pain he suffers due to the loss of his mother and the regret he feels for his treatment of Saoirse, and she offers to take away his pain into one of the jars, but when he hears Cú barking upstairs, Ben snaps back to his senses, telling Macha that forcing yourself to abandon emotions would only make things worse – you should face them head on rather than try to quite literally bottle them up. I do really like this overall theme of the theme – emotions are to be felt, not bottled up away – and this film does a MUCH better job teaching this moral than Eight Crazy Nights did. To Eight Crazy Nights’ credit, it did ATTEMPT to show that bottling up your emotions can really harm you and others around you and there’s no shame in letting out your emotions, but it was still executed very poorly. Davey Stone went ABOVE AND BEYOND what Ben does in this film – all that Ben really does is push his sister’s face into a birthday cake as the WORST thing he does. Davey Stone on the other hand, froze an old man in excrement and left him for dead, psychologically tormented said old man by saying he shouldn’t exist, was an abusive menace to his community who bullied everyone around him, and with all that, he was also a GROWN MAN. Ben is a very young child when he starts resenting his younger sister, blaming her for his mother’s death, and he realises the error of his ways MUCH faster than Davey did, which made his emotions much more believable, and his neglectful actions were MUCH, MUCH more toned down than Davey Stone’s sociopathic tendencies, making Ben MUCH more likeable. By the way, I feel Starlight Glimmer in Friendship is Magic didn’t go anywhere NEAR as far as Davey Stone did, she was the villain of Season 5 AND she had a reasonable REASON to do what she did, so I say she was handled much better in her redemption than Davey Stone was too.

Macha starts reminding me quite a bit more of the way the Witch of Wastes is animated when she loses her temper, and her owls carry her to her jars, where she bottles up the anger. Ben rushes upstairs, to find Cú and a dying Saoirse in Macha’s attic – Saoirse has already been partially been partially turned to stone. By the way, I like the use of the cobweb like ‘border’ to the frame in this scene – in a similar manner to some scenes with similar borders, it gives them the look of pictures in a locket. Ben tries breaking the jars to let the emotions free, but after accidentally hitting Cú in the face with one of the jars, he remembers that the song on the shell can break them, as Cú keeps Macha downstairs by lying on the door. DEFINITELY how Maddy would try to keep someone out.

Ben gives Saoirse the shell, and after comforting her and apologising for his harsh actions over the years, he helps her with the song, which she plays on the shell, breaking the jars, letting the emotions fly free. The emotions start flying through to Macha, who, in another bit of animation that reminds me of the Witch of the Wastes, starts coming through the door, but becomes quite literally very emotional when the different emotions go back to her. This brings Saoirse’s legs out of their petrified state, but she collapses to the ground after dropping and shattering the shell. The emotions forming the thundercloud above the cottage return to Macha, and help her to recognize the gravity of her actions despite how she was only trying to take everyone’s suffering away, in another scene which makes me feel very sympathetic. To help them get back home in time, Macha offers her something more effective than any car – Ben and Saoirse ride on Cú’s back, flying back home with the spirits of Mac Lir's dogs guiding them. It’s almost like the scene in Jim Carrey’s A Christmas Carol where the Ghost of Christmas Past flies with Scrooge or the flying scene in The Snowman – except with dogs – and I do really love the epic music here. Once again, Fidelma realises something is wrong and wakes up, driving out WHILE STILL IN HER NIGHTCLOTHES. Wow, very dedicated, isn’t she? They eventually make it back to the lighthouse, and while Conor is grieving, Ben rummages around, looking for Saoirse’s coat, but Conor, not realising the importance of the coat and associating it with the reason why they lost Bronagh, thinking that it’s dangerous, believes that getting Saoirse to a hospital is a better course of action, and tries rowing away to find a hospital. Sure, he has a frustrated tone of voice here, but he’s frustrated because HIS DAUGHTER IS DYING. Once again, like with Abbot Cellach, despite how the character may come off as stern here, I can see they’re acting with the best intentions. However, Ben, overcoming his fear of the sea in favour of the safety of his sister, jumps into the sea, following the glowing lights to try and find the coat. Also, if Conor was as neglectful a parent as some people say he is, he wouldn’t be JUMPING INTO THE SEA TO SAVE HIS OWN SON, would he? That’s something you wouldn’t see Perry Babcock, Lord Portley-Rind or Denethor do on their own. The seals guide him to the chest, and bring the key to him, allowing Ben to get Saoirse’s coat. Ben passes out, and Conor carries him back into the boat, and Cú puts the coat on Saoirse, which not only wakes her up, but gives her her voice.

Now comes another extremely beautiful scene – in which Saoirse turns back into a seal, and hshe and the other seals swim with Ben, Conor and Cú to the island of Mac Lir – after a spot of surfing with the seals. Wow, I’ve seen surfing penguins in Surf’s Up, but never surfing seals! Saoirse starts singing her song, and with this, she suddenly gets lifted up into the Northern Lights from Brother Bear! Either that or the Beast’s transformation in Beauty and the Beast. But in all seriousness, this, fantastically animated scene #5,393,912 in this film, is the scene that made me feel the most like this film studio has potential to become the next Studio Ghibli – as she sings her song, Saoirse is restored to health and aurora like lights spread all throughout Ireland. Faerie creatures from across Ireland rise and travel to Mac Lir's island, and Mac Lir himself emerges with a much happier and more energised Macha and his dogs as they head to Tír na nÓg. As well as the visuals being fantastic – like a much more upbeat version of Night on Bald Mountain with all the spirits rising, the music is just a MARVEL – with many of the rising spirits playing instruments to add to the already incredible rhythm. That one shot of all the spirits on Mac Lir’s shoulders as they walk towards the sunset is almost like something out of a dream. The whole thing looks like it could rival scenes like scenes in Spirited Away, Laputa Castle in the Sky, or Princess Mononoke.

And here’s something else to add to the already emotional storm that this film has brought - Bronagh appears in her seal form! Turning back into a human, she the sad news that she and Saoirse must depart as well, being Faeries themselves. However, since Saoirse is part human, Bronagh is able to take her coat and leave her behind to live as a human while she departs, as Saoirse wishes. After a tearful goodbye, the Faeries depart across the sea. Okay, a complaint I sometimes hear about this film is the reason why Bronagh leaves. I will admit, I wasn’t too sure about the ending myself, but after some thinking about it on my second watch of the film, I came up with an explanation. Bronagh is a faerie, and the faeries are explicitly separate from humans, except for Saoirse, who's half human. The faeries are diminished and trapped by a world that no longer believes in them. When Saoirse frees them, they look larger and more alive, and they immediately headed for their true home, another world called Tír na nÓg. For some reason, before this point it was all right for fairies to live in the human world and even intermarry with humans. When Saoirse sings her song, that frees them, but it also means that they must leave our world, and that includes Bronagh. Maybe that's why Bronagh never sang that way. She wanted to stay with her family. Her first child was human, so maybe she thought there was a good chance all of her children would be the same way. But her daughter turned out to be a selkie, and for Saoirse's safety Bronagh apparently had to give birth in the water. For whatever reason, after that, she could not come back to the land ever again – I heard that in the various versions of the selkie tale, when the selkie makes her inevitable return to the sea, she never returns, and she may have actually died while giving birth. In that way, the movie's following the example of the folktale. The whole story is a metaphor centred around a family with a deceased parent. Faeries are connected with ghosts in a lot of folklore. Now, when Bronagh reappears, her eyes are shut. She's asleep while she's interacting with Saoirse. Sleep is often a euphemism for death. It's only after Ben starts calling her that she wakes up. In short, my personal explanation is that she's dead, at least to the human world. However, because she's a faerie, she's still alive in a way, although diminished like all the other faeries. Thus, she must move on to Tír na nÓg.

Now, to be fair, my one true nitpick with this film is a very small criticism that doesn’t harm the film, but is something I found to be similar to the one main nitpick I had with the Studio Ghibli film Ponyo – both of these films have a scene where the mythical girl has to choose whether to go home with her other spiritual creatures or stay in the land of mortal men – and I do feel that the scene where they have to choose are a tad rushed in both films. As I said, it’s entering a new realm of nitpick, but it’s one of the few points I have to raise where the film could be improved. Maybe it’s just me, but I do think that the films could become even better if there is a scene where the characters talk about which way would be better and the characters finally coming to a decision – but to be fair, in both cases, with the time they had, I feel that they do a relatively good job with the pacing of the scene. Even though the tone of the scene, and the film itself as a whole, is pretty melancholy for a family film, I think all the scenes and the way the film is paced come together brilliantly.

Conor realises how he hasn’t been acting the best all these years, and Ben and his family happily return home to their island, where Fidelma and Ferry Dan arrive, and Feidelma decides the children can stay with their father. Ben and Connor tend to paintings in Ben’s room like Bronagh used to make, and at Ben’s birthday party, Saoirse dunks Ben’s head in the cake like Ben did to Saoirse (in an amusing little bit of playback that was done in a more playful manner ), before they go swimming in the sea together with the seals. And as the ending credits music, we get one more singing of the Song of the Sea, which is a very beautiful way to end a very beautiful film. Is it me, or does this sound a bit like an Irish version of a song from Okami in places? Yet another lovely comparison I can make between two pieces of media I feel should be treated like pieces of true art.

I really like this movie. The animation is great, the soundtrack is great, and the story is great.

the visual story telling is great in that film though each character represents a myth if you look closely. Irish folklore is amazing and needs to be shared more.

"Song of the Sea" is a lovely movie. It has a good story, some great characters (with the exception of the father), amazing animation and lovely Celtic music. There really are some things that I do admire about this movie like the aspects of Celtic mythology, the animation style, and the apsects of the sea that I admire (wish the film would delve more into that, though). I like it.

I tried to think of the perfect descriptor for this film, but the best I could come up with is to liken it to the equally beautiful film Pan's Labyrinth if it were a Studio Ghibli film. I knew that I would love this film the first time I saw it, but upon a second watch, I can safely say that I haven’t been THIS impressed by a film since MARY AND MAX. If Song of the Sea is not in my Top 5 Favourite Animated Films of all Time, it’s definitely in the Top 10. Everything about the film sticks together perfectly into place for me, which is something that I can rarely ever say for a film. It has dark elements, a timeless and engrossing story, and an aesthetic mastery. I love the main theme of the film involving embracing emotions rather than bottling them up inside, and this echoes itself through the struggles of the characters, which I feel are extremely believable. Even if they do make mistakes throughout the film, I feel that the way the events in the story are told make these actions extremely believable, making the characters more likeable and three dimensional. As well as the characters being memorable, the music and animation are just PHENOMENAL. In today’s day and age, it’s a welcome relief that the very few hand drawn animated films that come out have the potential to match, and even EXCEL some of the CGI animated films that have come out over the past decade. I don’t mean to sound like someone who praises ONLY hand drawn animated films with statements like that, as I love CGI animated films too, but I just think that with the animated films that have been recently released, people who believe hand drawn animation is old hat should really give the medium another chance – especially after watching films like this. I also really like that films like this are proving that family films don’t ALWAYS have to rely on badly placed pop cultural references, endless toilet humour and stupidly and unlikeable characters (I’m looking at you The Nut Job and Alpha and Omega ) and instead can bring in cultural mythology and folklore, that I feel that should be brought to the attention of not only children, but adults as well – because I will admit, I really did love learning about the cultural aspects in The Secret of Kells and Song of the Sea, in a similar manner to the way I love learning about Japanese culture in films from Studio Ghibli.

I mean it when I saw that this is a film that I don’t just recommend to people, but I feel that it’s a near NECESSITY to watch them. I know that may sound a bit extreme, but I really feel that if you DON’T watch this film, you’re really missing out – like with Chirin No Suzu, Frozen, Inside Out, Beauty and the Beast, Up, the Toy Story films, Mary and Max, The Secret of NIMH, Hunchback of Notre Dame, Felidae, Plague Dogs, Watership Down, Fantasia, Princess Mononoke, Grave of the Fireflies, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Spirited Away, Coraline, ParaNorman, The Iron Giant, WALL-E, My Neighbour Totoro, Laputa Castle in the Sky, The Secret of Kells and many of my other favourite animated films of all time (I have WAY too many animated films that I strongly recommend to people), I feel that it’s an example of a film that can REALLY change the way that people see animation, and see past that horrid ‘it’s for kids’ mentality that so many narrow minded people seem to adopt. I know this may sound quite extreme, but I can say that after watching this film, I actually felt a bit more complete. You know those times in life when you see something or do something that makes you feel like you’re MUCH better off for doing it? Like with when I saw Inside Out for the first time, I can say that I was REALLY missing out before I watched it. In quite a few ways, this film is a legend in itself which can rival the creatures and tales of lore…. And hopefully, with Tomm Moore’s growing expertise and future films down the road (including his next film Wolfwalkers, which delves into lycanthropy), his films will live on in the cinematic hall of fame for aeons to come.

Next time, I will be reviewing a live action film which I was ALSO looking a long time for, and I feel that it is a Disney film that REALLY deserves more praise and exposure than it gets, like Something Wicked This Way Comes and The Black Hole. And like those two films, I think the reason why it’s lacking exposure is because of the scary moments in it, but like with those films, I think that it gives Disney more points for having the bravery to work in scarier moments in their films. And it contains one of the most AWESOME dragons I have ever seen in media. It’s time to go back to the 1980’s for….

DISNEY’S DRAGONSLAYER!

UPCOMING REVIEWS

192. Dragonslayer

193. A Monster In Paris

194. Panda! Go Panda!

195. Godzilla (1954)

196. Godzilla (2014)

197. Undecided - Belleville Rendez-Vous or The Illusionist

198. Undecided Horror Film

199. Undecided Don Bluth Film

200. Aesthetically, the Worst Made Film I’ve Ever Seen (Eight Crazy Nights is still my least favourite film of all time, but this film is the worst ANIMATED film I’ve ever seen)