Book of Kells hits the big screen

Donald Clarke writing in the Irish Times
The iconic tome is the inspiration for a new Irish film involving serpents, Vikings and a bold young hero – and there’s not a single leprechaun in sight

WHEN Tomm Moore, a young animator from Kilkenny, decided to embark on his first feature film, he was keen to explore Irish themes, locations and idioms. There were, of course, dangers in this approach.
“Oh, that’s right. I definitely didn’t want to make Darby O’Gill and the Little People ,” he laughs. “You will, in this business, often hear people coming up with ideas like Larry the Leprechaun. “No really! ‘He could be the next Mickey Mouse’, they’ll say.”

Nearly a decade after Moore and his team began their efforts, The Secret of Kells arrives in cinemas and, as the director intended, it wraps itself in Celtic garb without drifting towards heritage cinema or indulging in Paddywhackery. Setting out to construct a fresh myth surrounding the creation of The Book of Kells , the film follows Brendan, a plucky 12-year-old, as he fights magical serpents and Vikings while in pursuit of an enchanted crystal.

The story – which also features monks voiced by such luminaries as Brendan Gleeson and Mick Lally – may be a tad disorganised, but it works as a surface on which to hang some genuinely sumptuous visuals.

Every frame of this film shows evidence of Moore’s fertile imagination and determination to avoid the obvious. Vikings appear as angry towers. Wolves are jagged silhouettes. Kila, the innovative hyper-folk musicians, provide surprising aural punctuation.
“We looked at a lot of medieval art and Japanese art,” he says. “We were trying to build a world that reflected art before they mastered perspective. That is the world these characters live in. So the fields have the flat look of ancient tapestries. Then, when we wanted to bring in some danger, we would suddenly allow perspective back into the frame. We liked to give the impression danger was breaking through this safe screen.”

There are some peculiarities to the piece. One notices, for instance, the near absence of any reference to Christianity. A viewer could sit through Moore’s film and be unaware that The Book of Kells is a transcription of the gospels.

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