We watched The Secret of Kells last night – it was truly beautiful. [Note: the following does discuss one plot point, but it’s nothing that is not revealed within the first ten minutes… I don’t like spoilers, and in any case the story itself is somewhat slight and not the most compelling reason to watch the film.]
The art style didn’t seem like anything too special at the very beginning, but I quickly got sucked in as I noticed the amazing attention to detail that lay behind what was at first glance a simple, even spare visual shorthand – everything from the forest echoing a cathedral (a nice reversal), to subtle Celtic-style interlacing in the mist, to individual knotwork snowflakes(!)… this film definitely rewards close attention.
One element that I found particularly interesting was the choices they made in depicting the Vikings as completely angular and machine-like, almost non-human – the closest comparison I can make is to the depiction of the Hammers in “The Wall”, which of course owed much to Nazi and Soviet-era propaganda art. Even more interesting than that, though, was the way that the building of the abbey’s defences echoed that mechanistic signature, over against the rounded and organic notes of the scriptorium and the forest, and of the manuscript pages themselves; all of which seemed to be speaking, in a subtle way, to the ultimate futility of stopping force with force alone.
In the end, though, story and message is not what Kells is really about – the movie is a love letter to the art of the animator, and a visually stunning homage to one of the world’s great artistic masterpieces.
sightless among miracles 
I have this on my Netflix queue and am quite excited to watch it. The hubby and I were going to watch it last night, but then we got sucked into the first season of The Riches. :) Perhaps tonight.
Cool – so, can you tell me what you like about The Riches? It’s in our queue now, but we’re still working our way through House… :)
The only reason I started watching The Riches is because of Eddie Izzard. :) I like it (mostly) and intend to finish it. (I think season 2 is available as well.) There are some parts that I could do without, but hey, it’s Izzard.
That’s what interested me about it…