WOLFWALKERS

Unleash the lycanthropes! History gets hairy in this animated movie.

WHEN IT COMES TO CURRENT THEATRICAL animation releases, finding any in the traditional 2D style is a rarity. However, there are some studios, such as Ireland’s Cartoon Saloon, that are bravely keeping the format alive with releases like Wolfwalkers.

A tale of tolerance set in 1650 Ireland, it follows young English transplant Robyn Goodfellowe (Honor Kneafsey), whose entire world view is challenged when she meets Mebh Óg Mactíre, a feral girl who runs with wolves – and can transform into one. A gentle exploration of the erasure of Irish Celtic life due to Puritan beliefs, it sees the girls using the magic of the land to free their futures.

Co-directors Tomm Moore and Ross Stewart call Wolfwalkers the third and final panel of their “Irish folklore triptych”, after The Secret Of Kells

(2009) and Song Of The Sea (2014) – both Oscar-nominated. It’s also their most visually ambitious effort yet.

“We were excited to try and tell a story through how we drew the characters and how we drew the backgrounds,” Moore tells Red Alert, when asked what makes this film unique. “The visual potential of really taking the shackles off and just going hell-for-leather into whatever you could do with hand-drawn animation.”

Stewart continues, “The fact that it turned out to be an action story meant that storyboarders were using lots of perspective, lots of explosions and effects, and we weren’t shying away from it.”

The script evolved quite a bit, with Robyn changing from a boy to a girl. “It wasn’t working,” Moore says of the earlier draft. “He didn’t have the same conflict pattern. When we hit upon the idea that it needed to be two girls, everyone was really supportive.”

Stewart adds that delving into the strong female history of Ireland tied everything together thematically. “It shows how a girl in that society would face so many challenges, be told what to do and be, more or less, caged for the rest of her life. When Robin meets Mebh, who is living free and is as instinctive and as wild as any of the wolves are, it shows classic cultures – but also shows Robin what she can be.” Featuring an earthy colour palette with woodblock and watercolour techniques to establish the human versus natural world, the film’s look bloomed from the talents of its visual artists, ranging from illustrators and painters to graphic novelists and sculptors. “Everyone brought a little bit of their other artform to the project,” Stewart says. “We also had inspiration from great animated films like The Tale Of The Princess Kaguya, Princess Mononoke and even 101 Dalmatians, which was a massive influence for our backgrounds with the classic Disney sketchy lines over watercolour paintings.”

They’re also deeply proud of some of the unplanned outcomes, like the “Wolf-vision” segments featured when humans take wolf form. Stewart says, “It went through quite a big exploratory process, as we didn’t have a definite look in our minds. We just knew the kind of feeling or mood that it should give off. Evan Mcnamara, a really great director and animator, came down and he worked with us on the Wolf-vision scenes, which ended up almost being a short film within the feature.” TB

Wolfwalkers is streaming on Apple TV+ from 11 December.