WOLFWALKERS SHOOTS FOR THE MOON
Beautiful Irish animated film will take a bite out of your heart
The world of movie animation is one of usual suspects.
At the top of the heap is the great juggernaut of Disney/pixar, almost incapable of making a less-than-great movie, although the Cars sequels and The Good Dinosaur come close.
Below that you've got the studio spinoffs like Dreamworks Animation, Fox's Blue Sky (now part of Disney) and Warner Bros. Animation.
For foreign-film aficionados there's Japan's Studio Ghibli.
So it's easy to lose track of a relative small-fry like Ireland's simply named Cartoon Saloon. Founded in 1999 and headquartered in Kilkenny, it has consistently punched above its weight with gorgeous, hand-drawn, Oscar-nominated fare like The Secret of Kells, Song of the Sea and The Breadwinner.
Its latest is Wolfwalkers, and it's the equal to any of those earlier works. Set in Kilkenny in 1650 — a period of English occupation that the film firmly notes but does not overemphasize — it's the story of a strong-willed little girl named Robyn Goodfellowe (voiced by Honor Kneafsey), whose heart's desire is to help her father (Sean Bean) rid the nearby forest of wolves.
Outside the town walls against his wishes to do just that, she meets a strange, half-wild girl named Mebh (Eva Whittaker), who was raised by the wolves and can speak to them.
In fact, she can even become one of them, and when Robyn is accidentally bitten, this power infects her, too.
Fairy tales are full of werewolves, but Will Collins's screenplay deftly twists the perspective from town to forest.
This is a story of wolf-weres if you will, and of the evil (or perhaps just misunderstood) human hunters that stalk them by the light of the full moon.
Wolfwalkers is the third part of co-director Tomm Moore's Irish folklore trilogy, and it continues his style of infusing wispy, Celtic and pre-celtic imagery into every frame.
Some of the scenes are composed almost vertically rather than with any sense of depth, but it's a compelling visual trick, and a welcome respite from the hyperreal computer-generated images to which we've become accustomed.
Best of all, the tale is easily accessible to kids and adults alike, tense without being terrifying, sweet but not saccharine. The friendship at its centre is
built around two little girls, but it will speak to anyone who has ever felt a connection to something more natural and less tame than can be found in everyday life.