OF WOLVES & IRISH GIRLS
Animated film also focuses on animal rights & speciesism
Robyn Goodfellowe is not afraid of wolves. And despite the strict rules that govern her new life in a new town, she just wants to go out hunting with her father.
After sneaking outside the walls of Kilkenny, Ireland, with her trusty falcon and crossbow, Robyn quickly learns she isn’t as prepared for the realities of the task as she believed. Leading the pack of wolves that reside in the forest are Mebh ”g MacTíre and her mother, Moll — the last of the magical Wolfwalkers. And meeting Mebh changes Robyn’s opinions about wolves forever.
According to directors Tomm Moore and Ross Stewart, the central elements of “Wolfwalkers” came together quickly. Around seven years ago, after the longtime friends directed a segment of “The Prophet” together, Moore asked Stewart to co-direct his next feature.
“I knew I wanted to do one final piece in the Irish folklore space, exploring those themes,” said Moore, referring to his triptych of films that also includes 2009’s “The Secret of Kells” and 2014’s “Song of the Sea” from Irish animation house Cartoon Saloon. “So I asked him to spend time just helping me come up with what that might be, because there was a lot of different options.”
From their earliest brainstorming session the pair turned to topics they were passionate about, such as animal rights, speciesism and extinction.
One key detail that changed is Robyn: Originally, the character had been envisioned as a boy. Having already “done the brother-sister thing” in his previous movies, Moore said the plan was to explore a first friendship or a first crush dynamic with Robyn and Mebh. But the setup didn’t quite work.
“We wrote a whole draft with Robyn as a boy, and it wasn’t working,” said Moore. “We were confused about why it wasn’t working. We were constructing conflict, stuff for the little boy to come up against. We had to construct all these obstacles for why he wasn’t allowed out. It made so much more sense for him to be a little girl.”
With “a girl, then it’s not just going to be her father saying, ‘You can’t be a hunter,’” said Stewart. “All of society, especially this Puritan overlord society, would be like, ‘No, a girl’s place is inside doing dishes and making food and looking after the kids.’”
The adjustment helped smooth out the story and also changed the character of Robyn and Mebh’s relationship. When Robyn meets Mebh, she is meeting her counterpart — a reflection that lets her really see an alternative to her stifling life.
According to Moore, one unforeseen result of having a girl is the queer subtext present in the film.
“The film editor at one point said, ‘This is a coming-out story — this could be a real first crush, queer romance’ … and reinterpreted the whole movie,” said Moore. “We didn’t lean into it, but we were aware it was there. It was kind of gratifying to see that some people saw that.”
In addition to its themes and story, Moore and Stewart had started developing the visual elements of “Wolfwalkers” from the beginning.
“Even on that very first session where we came up with the bones of the story, we were already drawing characters, and we were already drawing key moments,” said Stewart. “As soon as we get a story in our head, we immediately would get certain visuals of that story.”
Among the film’s artistic inspirations was Isao Takahata’s “The Tale of Princess Kaguya,” which was nominated for an Academy Award in the same year as Moore’s “Song of the Sea,” and its use of expressive line drawing.
“That was an idea that we wanted to do, and we made it part of the story,” said Moore.
“The English and everyone who lives in the town are like a woodblock print with thick, black clean outlines. And then, the more that Robyn became part of the forest, the more her lines would change to be like Mebh and the wolves who are really scratchy” with visible underdrawings.
This approach was to emphasize how these are hand-drawn characters and that the film is indeed composed of actual drawings.