The Movies of Cartoon Saloon

back when i was in middle school i used to wake up pretty early in the morning i'd take a shower get dressed eat breakfast and the rest of the time between then and when i'd have to walk to school was spent trying to find something to watch on tv your options were pretty limited back then in terms of early morning content between playhouse disney nick jr and the news the only channel that didn't seem to have a dedicated preschool block was cartoon network even then the majority of shows they aired before 8 o'clock were seemingly designed for little kids there was the mr men show the land before time tv series and some weird kung fu panda knockoff called skunk foo granted i didn't realize at the time that skunk fu predated kung fu panda by a good nine months but from the few minutes i would spare on it at any given morning i didn't form a higher opinion of it besides oh it's just kung fu panda but with a skunk okay and then i'd flip the channel hoping to find something else to kill my time before i had to go to school little did i know that i would come to regard the studio that made this supposed knockoff as one of the greatest animation studios in the 21st century the studio in question being cartoon saloon is the brainchild of three animation alumni from the ballet furmont college of further education in dublin ireland these are paul young tom moore and nora toomey all three had grown up in a time where many american studios would outsource their animation to ireland to take advantage of financial grants and benefits offered by the industrial development authority or ida for short the biggest of these studios at the time being sullivan bluth studios which was a little-known group of people who made a few movies you may or may not have heard of like that sentimental favorite the pebble and the penguin as the renaissance age of animation trailed along most studios began to outsource animation to other countries and major studios like sullivan bluth would end up going bankrupt a lot of the native irish animators from these studios would go on to make their own companies animating movies tv shows and commercials both foreign and domestic keeping interest in the medium alive in the country this would eventually lead to the founding of cartoon saloon but i'm getting ahead of myself all three of the founders of cartoon saloon would show a great interest in animation throughout their younger years nora toomey would drop out of school at the age of 15 but still work on her art portfolio before officially enrolling at ballet fermet paul young would sketch caricatures on the beach and sell them to tourists giving him the idea that he could make a living off animation tom moore would have a similar revelation when he was a teenager when he along with friend and fellow animator ross stewart would visit sullivan bluth studios giving him an idea of how labor-intensive making an animated movie really was not long after their graduation moore and young along with two me who had graduated in 1995 would found cartoon saloon in 1999 hiring many of their fellow alumni in the process the studio would work on short films and tv commercials for much of its infancy with toomey directing the shorts more working as an animator and young handling the business side by nature of in his own words and i happened to be the only one that was i had to be the one one sitting in front of the one computer and phone so i sort of became the the boss no the traveling salesman really from the beginning however tom moore's desire with cartoon saloon was to make a movie a movie based on one of ireland's best known contributions to art the illuminated manuscript the book of kills they would start work on a trailer for the film not long after the studio opened but the realization of how long it would take to make the movie put the idea on hold for several more years with production on what would eventually become the secret of kells not beginning until 2005 when the same crew behind the oscar-nominated french film the triplets of belleville would take interest and help in the project the many advertisements made by saloon would keep them afloat while the shorts they made would generate interest in the fledgling studio and in an ironic case for yours truly it was the tv show skunk fu that gave them one of their first big successes the show would air in 120 countries and was one of the first projects to really put their name on the map just two years before kells would release in domestic theaters the movie would perform moderately well in ireland but found more acclaim overseas where it would wind up being nominated for best animated feature at the academy awards an impressive feat for an independent studio's debut theatrical film the critical claim of kells meant that cartoon saloon were not only being contacted for more work from studios across the world but that they could pursue other theatrical films as well and in the wake of kells they've made three other animated films in the course of just 11 years these being song of the sea the breadwinner and the upcoming wolf walkers all of which have received near universal critical acclaim and see in breadwinner both being nominated for best animated feature at the academy awards with such a prestigious filmography of theatrical and short films any fan of animation especially traditional hand-drawn animation is bound to discover their work sooner or later you may wonder then how did i discover them well i wait how did i discover them i've always been a huge fan of animation though i can't draw to save my life i grew up on a steady diet of disney dreamworks pixar dawn bluth and countless other animated studios and personalities to give me a deep appreciation of the medium it's become even more prominent as i've grown up and realized how freaking hard the process is in its entirety we take for granted just how long the process is to animate a simple frame of an animated movie let alone a whole scene there's dozens upon hundreds of artists in charge of keeping continuity cleaning up sketches creating believable backgrounds and characters and a lot of other busy work so much so that it's a wonder animated movies get made at all i also grew up in that weird transitional period when hand-drawn animated films started to go the way of the dodo in favor of computer animation and while i've never held a grudge against cg animation i'd be lying if i said i didn't miss seeing the craftsmanship of traditional animation at work in more modern films this is probably what eventually drew me that wasn't a pun i swear to the secret of kells back in 2011 a short time before the fall of video rental stores in favor of streaming sites like netflix i would rent a lot of niche movies that were either recommended to me by online friends or that i knew were nominated for an oscar or two back when i still cared about the academy anyway this is where i would first watch movies like persepolis the illusionist several studio ghibli films a few batman movies because i'm simple and the secret of kills while writing the script to this video i legitimately wondered to myself how exactly i found out about this movie was it that segment at the 2010 oscars that i vaguely remembered watching positive word of mouth from my aforementioned online friends or was it just the minimalist art on the dvd cover that enticed me to take a look the secret of kells you say who is that peeking out from the leaves staring into my soul almost teasing me to find out what this movie is i guess one way or another i had to find out and what i found would be the start of a beautiful trend a beautiful if slightly annoying trend [Music] to get an idea for the art style of the secret of kells or brendan and the secret of kells in certain markets one need only look at the influences that directly inspired one of its directors tom moore frequently cites the works of richard williams specifically his unfinished masterpiece the thief and the cobbler which made frequent use of forced perspective and flattened landscapes as well as disney's mulan which based a lot of its design on traditional chinese art it's easy to see the influence of studio ghibli as well with more citing my neighbor totoro as a film that showcases the culture of its nation without acting as a tourism advertisement japan come for the food stay for the friendly forest demons and of course the biggest influence of all being the book of kells itself so what exactly is the book of kells well it's the bible mainly it's an illuminated manuscript re-telling the new testament gospels of matthew mark luke john illuminated manuscripts were incredibly prominent in the middle ages used mainly in churches to demonstrate their devotion to god and scripture through art they would decorate manuscripts in the finest gold and paint they could afford giving new life to scripture and possibly giving those who couldn't read a picture in their head as to the beauty and wonder of their new religion basically it was the church showing off as they are often want to do still it took a great deal of skill to bring these illuminated drawings to paper and whether or not you're a believer the artwork is undeniably impressive i mean if modern day christian kids can get a manga version of the bible from their local christian bookstore who are we to judge the secret of kells doesn't seem very interested in converting people to christianity though it's set in the abbey of kells in a time where it was basically unheard of to not be a prison of faith but it looks at the creation process of the book as more of a metaphor for the creative process in general than of the creation of one of the seminal illuminated manuscripts of the bible even the addition of celtic mythology doesn't spark a debate as to which is the true belief this is merely a fable as to the book's origins told through the perspective of a young boy with a spark for creation a spark that he is constantly told to push aside in favor of more practical matters kellock the abbot of kells voiced by brendan gleason is preparing his monastery for the invasion of vikings as they scour the islands surrounding ireland his nephew brendan works by evan mcguire has been apprenticed in kel's scriptorium but all work is put on hold to help build the abbott's wall which the abbott hopes will be enough to protect them things become a bit heated once brother aiden of iona voiced by mclally arrives and kells with the intent of finishing the book he and his deceased master have been working on for decades brendan's curiosity and desire to prove himself to the monks and his uncle draws him to brother aiden whose encouragement of brendan's creative instincts only increases his drive enough to disobey his uncle's orders and wander into the forest just outside of kells where he encounters the fairy ashland voiced by kristen mooney who takes a liking to brendan after initial hostility as brynden helps brother aiden gather materials to finish the book aiden confesses to the boy that he's become too old to complete it himself wanting brendan to take on the task under his supervision brendan is reluctant especially because of his uncle's insistence on fortifying the monastery it soon becomes a question not a faith but of courage as to whether or not brendan will find the strength within him to complete aiden's work and turn darkness into light oh yeah and there's pinkerbone she's a cat how does one even go about describing the art of this movie let me rephrase that how does a simpleton like me who has grown up loving animated movies and has several nerd friends who know the ins and outs of how they're made and still doesn't really know the basic terms and techniques go about describing what i think of this movie well i think one thing that's remained constant ever since i first saw it is that it doesn't take long to become immediately stricken by how unique and beautiful it is in hindsight and especially when it's compared to its successors it's easy to see that the secret of kells is the debut effort of an independent studio that's not to knock the film in any way but the character animation and designs feel a lot more restrained both due to a lower budget than other contemporary animated films of the time and that cartoon saloon had mostly done shorts and tv related work up until then that said it's also very impressive that a debut film of a small studio could give us such beautiful attention to detail in the backgrounds in cinematography an interesting decision on the cruise part was to keep much of the film and the aforementioned flattened perspective mimicking the illustrations seen in an illuminated manuscript even the forest which has a much brighter color palette than that of kel's still retains this flat perspective though both settings make frequent use of forced or warped perspective in some way in kells there are a lot of scenes where we seem to be almost looking down on the characters who are often framed in the center of the circle the monastery itself is that of a circle with the abbott's tower in the center on top of naturally drawing our eyes to the center of the frame the design choice may also be in reference to one of the tools brendan uses to eventually help aiden in finishing the book the eye of konkiel or as ashlynn knows it the eye of krom kruik speaking of chrom another intentional design choice for the movie was to feature actual perspective only when danger is present these include the first time brendan sees the lair of chrome the viking invasions and the eventual encounter with krom itself which plays around both with flattened and three-dimensional perspectives depending on who has the upper hand in the fight in scenes like this it's easy to see the other key influence of this movie samurai jack admittedly i didn't grow up watching this show and still haven't to this day so most of my memories involving it are pretty clouded and vague but every vivid memory i do have of the show involves the fight scenes i especially recall one episode that had jack facing off against a horde of enemies and the color of the scene being either extremely muted or extremely red still the more subdued nature of the action scenes in this movie and the almost demonic appearance of the vikings evokes the subdued style of samurai jack the vikings themselves are somewhat like the huns from mulan portrayed as a chaotically evil group of people who are even less human than shawn you and his army i mean at least sean you could say more than one word were the huns given this kind of treatment in mulan an american-made film already risking the wrath of offending chinese audiences it almost certainly would have made somebody mad at least disney had the good sense to not veer too hard in that direction insert your own joke about the remake here but this being an irish made film telling an irish story it makes sense that they would portray the vikings in this manner especially as our main focal viewpoint is brendan's a child who has no doubt heard plenty of terrible stories of their destruction and is now seeing that destruction playing out before his very eyes well gee this will make playing assassin's creed valhalla uncomfy suffice to say 11 years have done nothing to lessen the visual splendor that the secret of kells provides i'm just as fascinated with the backgrounds and character designs on what must be my 20th watch as i was my first i'd be lying if i said i thought this movie was completely flawless however i'm always kind of surprised and yet not surprised at all that this movie is only 75 minutes long on the one hand the stuff they managed to fit in what now feels like a rather brisk run time compared to the length of modern movies is nothing short of impressive on the other hand maybe a bit of that run time could have been used to flesh some of these characters out just a little more it's not that i don't like these characters i love the antics of the brothers in the abbey and how they're meant to represent a multicultural group of friends even if maybe they could have dialed it back on brother asua and tang's designs a bit i love brother aiden's boundless enthusiasm and encouragement of brendan's interests i love the complexity of abbott kellock and how he's made to appear like a traditional antagonist in the vein of disney with his lean and angular design but he's not a villain by any means he's a strict man who acts harsh and cold out of a desire to put more focus on protecting his people especially his nephew he's not depicted as entirely wrong for scolding the other brothers for putting more emphasis on the book either just misguided and even a little arrogant brendan gleason's performance undoubtedly being one of the standouts in the cast only usurped by okay okay before we get into that what exactly am i on about that these characters could have used a little more fleshing out if i say i like them so much well it's one of those odd cases where i think the characters are fine but they don't feel as well rounded out as they could have been brother aiden is fond and jovial but he doesn't seem like anything other than the archetypal eccentric mentor figure the brothers in the abbey are good side characters but it also would have helped strengthen the movie by showing how tight-knit relationships with those of other cultures and races can strengthen the bonds of a community or even strengthen a sense of faith it is there in the scenes where they gather around to see brendan draw on the book but we don't really know about who they are or where they came from or what made them want to become monks in the first place and i know adding all that would just bog the movie down with excessive details but what if i'm a weirdo who wants excessive scenes of characters just bonding and shooting the every so often what if i'm one of those weirdos who actually thinks the first hobbit movie is good and the length and time spent in the shire isn't just middling padding as we get to see some actually unique character traits in all of the 13 dwarves and have just enough individuality with each of them that you could pick them apart from each other which is something that rarely happens in adaptations of the hobbit or even in the original book so it actually makes you care about them when they go on there wait what was i talking about [Music] what exactly am i on about that these characters oh yeah right brendan himself is probably the worst case of this for me like i said of everybody else i like him fine he's a perfectly serviceable protagonist and yet the ark he goes through feels a bit half-formed when i step back and take a look at the whole film his time spent with brother aiden helps him to come out of his shell as an aspiring illuminator enough that he leaves the safety of kells to venture into the forest and find the berries aiden needs to create paint he also gains the courage to stand up to his uncle and pursue what he really wants in finishing the book but it doesn't feel as strong as it could have been his interactions with ashlan are probably where the influence of his uncle could have played out a little more there's a moment just before he checks out the layer of chrome where he dismisses ashland's concerns as pagan nonsense which kinda feels like missing the forest for the trees when he sang this to a literal fairy i've heard about creatures like you you're a fairy if he were a little more dismissive of ashland or even more afraid of her for just a little longer than he is it might have given his ark a little more oomph in my opinion to challenge his world view by making him be a bit more haughty in his faith that said i realize this movie is over a decade old and there's still three other movies with much stronger protagonists so i'm probably preaching to the choir here before moving on i'd be remiss to not talk about the movie's true standout character ashley ashley and this is my first of all the characters i've complained about for not having enough screen time ashlynn is actually the character who shows up the least it's even stranger than that it feels like no time was wasted with her at all from the moment she takes a humanoid form we get pretty much everything we need to know about her she's protective of her forest a bit of a trickster distrustful of others but she's also playful and kind with a sensitive side too she may be a good hundred or so year old fairy but her youthful energy makes her the perfect foil and friend for brendan where he's a bit more reserved and cautious ashlynn is much more open and boisterous the only time she shows any real fear is when krom kruik is brought up and that's for good reason what was that i told you she's pretty much the embodiment of the forest and its otherworldly charm to the point that when she eventually shows up in kells to help brendan sneak out of the tower we feel just as uncomfortable as she is in such a mundane and christian environment again there's no war between paganism and christianity in this movie ashlyn and brendan get along fine and she goes to great lengths to help her friend finish his book just because she knows it's important to him if she could get into the tower to break him out herself she probably would but that's what a cat-like panger is for something you don't think about until it's really bad is child acting in movies now i'm not one of those people who will immediately decry kids in movies acting is harder than it looks and often some of these kids either aren't given proper direction or just don't really understand what it is they're supposed to be feeling in a scene cartoon saloons movies never seem to fall on this trap i don't know if there's something in the water in ireland that makes all these kids such great actors but both evan maguire and especially kristin mooney play their parts wonderfully my admiration for mooney's performance in particular increased tenfold when i found out she came up with the ethereal melody of this song completely on her own the secret of kells represents a decade-long dream for tom moore who had wanted to make it as his thesis film back in college but found the idea kept getting bigger and bigger the edges are a bit rough and the characters could be a little more substantial overall but one thing no one can deny is the sheer craftsmanship that went into this in a time where traditional animation was long thought as dead with even disney only just coming back to it the same year kel's was released here comes this relatively unheard of indie studio with one of the most gorgeous looking hand-drawn movies in ages breathing new life into the medium that they would continue to keep alive with each subsequent project they undertook kells may not exactly be a masterpiece of storytelling but it's definitely a masterpiece of animation in my book if you somehow have never heard of this movie up until now you owe it to yourself to check it out the secret of kells is available on dvd blu-ray and on amazon prime in north america the international acclaim of kells and the oscar nomination helped put more of a spotlight on cartoon saloon and the distribution of the movie in american theaters by then newcomer g kids helped secure investors and interest in their next theatrical project there was talk of continuing the story of skunk foo in the form of a movie but word of that as well as word of season 2 died pretty quickly ultimately the next project would turn once again to irish folklore only this time with a more modern setting remember that beautiful and slightly annoying trend i talked about with cartoon saloon films four hours ago it began not long after i watched the secret of kells i was curious about the studio and wanted to see if they'd done more stuff eventually stumbling upon the concept trailer for song of the sea it featured the bare minimum of what would eventually become the finished movie a mother and her daughter running out into the ocean her son and his sheepdog watching from atop the lighthouse the mother and her daughter turning into seals and running into a bunch of seals in the process all i could say after watching this really small trailer was you son of a i'm in but here's the thing i discovered this conceptual trailer sometime in the late summer of 2011. song of the sea wouldn't come to theaters until a tour from g kids in 2014 a tour that just so happened to skip over my town entirely and then it wouldn't come out on blu-ray and dvd until early 2015. it was only after all that that i finally understood the plight of the last crusader in the third indiana jones movie it was 700 years ago but was it worth that really long time to wait though yes yes it was the difference between the secret of kells and song of the sea for cartoon saloon is sort of like the difference between snow white and the seven dwarfs and pinocchio for disney no one will deny snow white's importance in the history of western animated movies nor will you see many hot takes saying it's a terrible movie it holds up remarkably well still there's a lot of elements in it that evoke the silly symphonies and mickey shorts disney was doing at the time with the story itself being more of a loose string of gag-filled scenes mixed together with a petty murder revenge plot you can't beat the classics pinocchio on the other hand while arguably still lacking in what we'd call a well-rounded protagonist by today's standards feels much more like an honest-to-god movie by comparison there's still a number of scenes where not a lot of plot is happening but it's more to show off how much the animators have improved in the three years since snow white and the story itself feels a little stronger with the goal of pinocchio becoming a real boy tying everything together it's not the best comparison in the world but in terms of stronger characterization story and vastly improved animation song of the sea feels very much like cartoon saloons pinocchio to me even if you had no idea they were made by the same people you could probably tell that song of the sea is sort of a spiritual successor to kells but with the irish setting and celtic mythology playing an arguably bigger part the major difference is that the setting has moved forward over a thousand years to everyone's favorite decade the 80s it's the 80s do a lot of coke and vote for ronald reagan and where kills was a brisk 75 minutes c's run time is increased by about 20 more though in the inverse of its predecessor it feels a lot longer than it really is mainly because of the slow and tranquil pacing the movie has nearly every scene has a methodical and almost serene feeling to it even when the stakes start to get a little high it reminds me a lot of studio ghibli's films and how the bulk of them will feature many slow and quiet scenes that give characters and the audience a time to breathe and reflect on the mood of the film and with subject matter like this that's probably for the bitter the film begins with a young boy named ben voiced by kevin swish and his mother brona voiced by lisa hannigan painting ben's bedroom in preparation for the arrival of his baby sibling what starts is a heartwarming scene between ben his mom and his dad connor voiced by brendan gleason with brona imparting a musical shell to her son that her mother gave to her ends in sudden tragedy i'm so sorry six years later a now 10 year old ben voiced by david rawl is increasingly hostile towards his mute sister circa out of resentment for his mother's apparent death from childbirth and his grief-stricken father's unintentional neglect and favoritism towards her on her sixth birthday their granny voiced by fianola flanagan arrives to join the celebration and to try to convince her son into letting the children move into the city with her that night circa discovers a key that unlocks a chest tucked away in her father's closet containing the coat that brona wore putting it on circa is compelled to the sea where she joins the local seals and finds out that she's a selkie a being that can turn from a seal to a human and vice versa as long as they're wearing their coat mistaking her moonlight swim for endangerment granny puts her foot down and insists that both children come with her back to the city the next morning to which conor dejectively agrees putting the coat back in its chest and throwing them both in the ocean ben is heartbroken to leave his dog coo behind and vows to return as fast as he can unaware that circa's newfound silky heritage has attracted many other fair folk to her presence from the friendly dinashi to the more antagonistic makka the owl witch as serious and ben try to get back home she becomes more and more sick and whether or not she can get her coat back and sing the song of the sea will determine the fate of the entire fairfolk one fateful halloween night if the central theme of kells was creativity and speaking your truth as an artist c is very much about loss and how we cope with it going deeper it tells the story of how ben and his family cope with grona's loss and how they all learn to process that grief ben's resentment towards circa stems from him more or less seeing his mother's disappearance as her fault the way any young child might mistakenly attribute something like that to their sibling as such he spends much of the first half of the movie treating her like a nuisance getting annoyed at her just being around him pushing her face into her birthday cake and telling a scary story about maka to intentionally freak her out however the movie never goes so far in depicting his resentment that it becomes unlikable he's just a kid he doesn't have the emotional understanding to properly process his anger and long-standing grief that's unfairly tied to his little sister it doesn't help that the way conor processes his grief is to dote on circa and seemingly ignore ben whenever she's around given that she's the spinning image of her mother and the last thing he has left of her it's understandable he'd unintentionally give her a little more attention and get short with ben whenever he expresses any grievance he has towards her the man is so deep in sorrow that when he goes out to the pub on the mainland we never see him take so much as a sip of his glass his mother seems to be trying her best to be there for him but she's very much the kind to try and think pragmatically seeing the kids moving in with her as the only right solution the one moment she's about to let emotion get the better for she pushes it aside insisting i need to take my medicine it's clear that this family hasn't even come close to letting go of brahma's apparent death and seisha is right in the middle of it all despite never even knowing her this is further exacerbated once the celtic mythology figures come into play the poor girl only just found out she was a selkie yesterday but she's already being hailed as a savior by the deena she that will guide them all home and free their brothers from their stone imprisonment she seems to take it in stride but this is still a six-year-old girl thrust into a much larger world and with a much larger purpose than someone her age should probably have to face the benefit of her and ben's discovery of her selkie heritage is that it starts to bring the two of them closer together with ben's fraternal instincts kicking in when maka's owls arrive to take cersei away their ensuing journey to get back home is the key in helping ben and all of the family finally let go of the grief they've been drowning in for the past six years in a tale of obvious and beautiful symbolism now when i say obvious symbolism that's not meant to knock the film to any degree i'm just saying that it's pretty clear once the mythological characters show up who's supposed to be who in a wizard of oz since conor is the sad giant mcclear whose grief nearly drowned ireland granny is maca the owl witch or as the fairy man puts it you all witch who means will but whose efforts in trying to help people are sorely misguided and the furry man himself is the great shauna key whose parallels would have been clearer had most of the intended scenes with the fairy man been included in the film even before we meet any of these characters we're given hints as to which celtic legends they represent through the use of their shadows or how conor is hunched over at the bar like mcclear and honestly i freaking love it just because the symbolism is blatant that doesn't mean it's automatically bad if anything it may help the kids watching to understand a little better and help engage them with the story it would also be one thing if the movie talked down to its audience with such blatant allegory but if anything it shows a great deal more respect for them than a lot of other films made for kids again there are so many quiet and moody scenes like the entirety of circus slow discovery of the coat and her eventual swim with the seals there's not a single amount of spoken dialogue for the majority of the scene we get everything we need from the animation and the music oh god the music all three of the more directed films in cartoon saloon's library were scored by french composer bruno colley in association with the irish band kila and were not for youtube's friendly copyright bots i'd be tempted to let several scenes play out just so you could hear the wonderful music accompanying them see may well have my favorite soundtrack of all the films that kool-aid and kila collaborated on i mean with a title like song of the sea the music is going to play an important part and i'd go so far as to compare kool-aid's hypnotic score to something like joe hisashi's work for a studio ghibli especially some of the quieter more somber scenes that reflect moments like sophie discovering how secret in hal's moving castle or chihiro riding the train and spirited away if nothing else i'd strongly urge you to seek out the soundtracks to all three of moore's movies helping out in the music department is the involvement of professional singer lisa hannigan as brona her time in the film is short but no less memorable singing the titular song of the sea in the beginning and whose soft hauntingly beautiful vocals are scattered throughout some of the incidental music oh and by the way just because i know somebody is going to mention it in the comments yes lisa hannigan played blue diamond in steven universe who ironically is a character going through her own long-standing grief that she hasn't fully processed yet i'm awfully sorry i know how hard it is to move on when you've lost someone you do returning from kells is also brendan gleason who shows a much different range with conor than he did the stern abbott calic as conor gleason is much wearier often speaking no louder than an almost mumble except for when he's mad through his performance gleason portrays a father who wants to be their first children but just can't get himself out of his depression so tragically well and the moment where he snaps at ben is one of my favorites in the film for how raw it is and again the child actors are so good in this just listen to david rawl's tears in this scene that's genuine emotion even though she's muted for most of the film circa does have a voice actress lucy o'connell who mainly provides the little gasps and grunts she does throughout the film and the little expressions like that as well as the liveliness in her character animation help bring the character to life where it would otherwise be easy to let her blend into the background the way most kids her age do in these movies filling out the rest of the cast are fairly prominent irish character actors and comedians john kenny provides the voice of the ferryman dan and the great shanna key and has one of those voices that is naturally likable and fits the bumbling nature of the latter character like a glove who said that fionula flanagan is granny and maca is also a great performance for how different both characters feel while being more or less the same person i mean they're not really the same person but both are treated as more antagonistic than they intend to be and both try to do what's best for others out of a sincere but arrogant case of thinking they know what's best in granny's case it's getting the kids away from the depressing environment of the lighthouse and for maca it's to bottle up any negative emotions in a person or fairy and turn them to stone something she's even been doing to herself for decades ben is almost convinced to let her take his negative feelings away because of how caring and soft she is in her reasoning she can also become menacing and cold at the flip of a dime making for a tense encounter but again what's great about flanagan's performance is that she doesn't play it like a typical wicked witch because that's not what maca is she's a misguided soul who never learned the lesson that this movie or inside out or a lot of the best children's media tried to teach us it's okay to feel sad sometimes if it seems like i don't have anything bad to say about this movie it's because i honestly don't i mean like i said before maybe the connection between the fairy man and the great shaniki could have been shown better and there's a bit of a confusing transition between circa jumping down a holy well and being captured by machus owls or no i can't even think of a third thing this movie is that good to me for how much i love the secret of kells i love song of the sea 50 times more and it's legitimately one of my all-time favorite movies i loved it so much the first time seeing it that i watched it twice in the same night and i mean you can kinda see why right on top of all the plot and allegory stuff this movie is just so damn beautiful the background shots the flattened perspectives and circular frames like in kel's and especially the character animation no that's mine mom gave it to me fluid human child do you know him every lesson cartoon saloon could have learned from the secret of kells they seem to have aced here creating a melancholy and heartfelt movie that doesn't talk down to kids about loss and how we can cope with it for the betterment of ourselves and the people we love there are moments in this film that are so beautiful i still get teary-eyed watching them especially the ending it may be a little slower pace than a lot of other films even the other films made by cartoon saloon but no scene ever overstays its welcome for me i love this movie a little bit more every time i see it and i always look forward to giving it a watch at the end of every halloween season song of the sea is available on dvd and blu-ray and on netflix in north america before we move on to the next movie i wanted to take you back to the 87th academy awards where we'll take a quick glance at the best animated feature category it's worth noting that every theatrically released cartoon saloon film has been nominated for best animated feature it remains to be seen whether or not wolf walkers will continue the trend but this means the relatively small studio has gone head to head with industry big boys like disney pixar dreamworks and lost every time to either pixar or disney in the case of kells and bread winner it's a little understandable as 2009 saw the release of up and 2017 had coco both fantastic films still any big fan of animation will tell you that the academy has a certain amount of favoritism towards western animation studios namely the all-consuming mouse and its most popular subsidiary i'd like to say it's probably not from a place of apathy towards foreign made movies as plenty of great international films have been nominated for and even won the category in the past but then you read crap like this i only watch the ones that my kid wants to see so i didn't see box trolls but i saw big hero 6 and i saw dragon and we both connected to big hero 6. i just found it to be more satisfying the biggest snub for me was chris miller and phil lord not getting in for the lego movie when a movie is that successful and culturally hits all the right chords and does that kind of box office for that movie to not be in over these two obscure freaking chinese things that nobody freaking saw that is my biggest most people didn't even know what they were how does that happen that to me is the most ridiculous thing i've ever seen you [Applause] i don't want to waste any more time on this quote than i have to believe me i've already spent hours screaming into empty space about it but i just wanted to give some perspective on how overlooked animation let alone animation from a foreign based studio is in a supposedly professional environment like the academy awards the academy has always shown a blatant disregard to the animation category and its members have seemingly defaulted to pixar or disney nearly every year there's the rare exception to the rule where they seem to have actually weighed quality and craft over what was popular with their children but most of the time animation joins the other categories the academy deems lesser than the really important ones like best picture or director look at it what's the secret of cows these are all cartoons i thought we got nominated like a real movie but expecting the academy to actually honor the films that will be remembered for years to come over which company gave them the best for your consideration bribes is like expecting someone to actually watch the movies they're supposed to be voting for i guess let's move on [Music] in the interest of thematic coherence it would be easy to skip over the breadwinner as it is so far the only cartoon saloon film to not take place in ireland feature celtic mythology in some capacity or even have tom moore serve as at least one of the directors this time the sole director's credit goes to nora toomey who had co-directed the secret of kells and served as the head of the art department for song of the sea if you'll remember from near the beginning of this video at least if you didn't skip that part she was also the director of a few of their short films like from darkness and cool and dual luck duloc doolock hold on backwards boy the film also marks the first direct adaptation cartoon saloon has done to a pre-existing work if you don't count the book of kells anyway the breadwinner was a book written by canadian author deborah ellis about a young girl named parvana who lives in kabul the capital of afghanistan and is forced to cut her hair to pass as a boy to earn money and food for her family after her father is arrested by the taliban the book was released in 2000 and was met with critical acclaim spawning three sequels and the interest of cartoon saloon who would team up with canadian-based independent film company aircraft pictures and frequent collaborator melozine productions from luxembourg toomey would also open a channel of communication with angelina jolie who had done extensive philanthropic work in afghanistan and knew plenty of native consultants to help portray the more intricate details of life in the country much of the book's core plot is retained on screen but with some fairly noticeable changes probably brought about due to the benefit or curse of hindsight the film sees parvana voiced by tsara chaudhry assisting her father nurella voiced by ali bachcha sell some of their wares at the market after he inadvertently angers a young soldier in the taliban nurula is arrested leaving behind his distraught wife two daughters and infant son after fatima voiced by lara sadiq tries to visit the prison where her husband is being held and is beaten by the taliban for leaving her home without a man the reality of their situation sinks in for pravana who cuts her hair to pass as a boy she carries on her father's duty in selling their wares and offering her services as a reader and writer finding herself empowered in her new persona whom she has named atish she finds more work when she meets another girl named shazia voiced by soma bhatia who has disguised herself as a boy named delaware the two do odd jobs around town while pravana tries to gather enough money to provide for her family and bribe her father out of prison all the while to make their dire situation more bearable she regales her little brothers aki in a story about a young boy who has to save his village from the terrible elephant king proving his word through bravery and goodwill as the movie goes on pravana uses this story to help others as well from her older sister sarya voiced by shaista latif shazia and even herself but the sobering reality that they all have to live in is a reminder enough that not all stories have a happy ending i'm loathe to admit i actually slept on this movie way longer than i should have it's been available on netflix pretty much since it left theaters but it's sat in my watch later list even when people like my younger sister would recommend it as something i'd really like and i had no doubt i would like it it's cartoon saloon i love all their movies if the length of this video wasn't your first clue but still you know how it is when you're sitting on your couch scrolling through netflix and you see that one movie you've been meaning to watch for ages come up and you go eh not tonight and you just end up scrolling for five more hours before you pass out in a board stupor streaming thank god video stores are dead it was actually my wife who suggested we finally watched this movie earlier this year it was a fairly intimate experience for a first watch i must say we curled up in bed laptop on our laps watching the film and the dark sanctity of our room and we both ended up walking away from the experience with one word relentless from the very beginning the movie wastes no time letting you know what you're in for sure it starts out with some playful banter between pravana and her father but then the moment is interrupted when the young soldier idris voiced by nuring galangas starts angrily yelling at them both commenting how pravana is probably of marrying age and accusing nurela of insulting him when he rebuffs him and it only gets worse from here while the film doesn't have too much intense imagery it's still the most realistic of all the cartoon saloon movies so far and this is reflected in the tone and style of the animation all of pervanna's story segments are presented in a stop-motion cutout format with very limited animation while the animation set in the real world is much more detailed and fluid this sets a very hard line between fantasy and reality where we can have a moment's peace and feel safe in parvana's story but feel constantly on edge whenever she's out and about winning that titular bread again it's not even that the film is laden with brutal imagery it's often what we don't see that hits the hardest the movie intentionally cuts away from pravana's mother being beaten by a soldier we stay on pravana's face when she angrily whispers that the taliban to stop yelling at a woman in her child even if the audience was unaware of life in afghanistan we're given enough of a picture through the events depicted in this movie and even though it's rated pg-13 i don't think it's so intense that anyone a few years younger than that would be turned off to it but that's purely speculation on my part but the experience isn't so relentless that it becomes a chore to sit through either the characters are compelling and realistic enough that you become drawn to their plight cheering when parvana is able to buy rice from the market as a boy when she couldn't get the time of day earlier as a girl for every sobering scene where we're faced with the reality of the afghanistan parvana has to live through there are plenty of moments where the movie reminds us that there is still some good in humanity to be found even from those in the taliban for a brief history lesson afghanistan has been a country riddled with war and political strife long before the war on terror in the 1980s after insurgent groups like the taliban began to fight back against the communist party of afghanistan the soviet union invaded the country to suppress the rebels america among other western countries would not so secretly send financial aid and supplies to help insurgency efforts and after 14 years of conflict the soviet union would withdraw and the ensuing disagreement as to how the country should be run would give way to four more years of civil war by the end afghanistan was at one of its lowest points in history facing drought and famine as the result of nearly 20 years of continuous war thus it became easier for many to accept the extremist government the taliban proposed in the name of peace even if it meant the suppression of human rights and regular executions to those they deemed enemies of islam the breadwinner doesn't hold back in depicting the extreme fundamentalism of the taliban nor the constant state of dread whenever parvana is forced to encounter them the worst example of this extremism is seen in the character of idris who uses his position in the taliban to bully and exert his view of masculinity over others narula at first fondly recognizes him as one of his students from when he was younger but idris dismisses any familiarity by chiding his old teacher for imparting useless lessons that don't serve him anymore it's obvious that his part in having nirella arrested is just pure pettiness and the one other time he shows up in the film he's still as arrogant and hateful as ever made worse when he recognizes pravana in her disguise and nearly kills her in shazia however there's a sobering moment at the end of this scene where an older soldier tells him they've been called to the front line and we see how absolutely terrified he is clinging to his gun like a blanket staring a thousand miles away and not even bothering to tell the others that he discovered a girl disguising herself as a boy he's done absolutely nothing to make you like him at this point but in this moment we see him for what he truly is deep down just a kid a kid wrapped up in the toxic masculinity and nationalism that was imposed upon all men once the taliban took over but even then not everyone in the taliban seems to adhere to this uber traditionalist way of life throughout the movie pravana has a few encounters with an older soldier named rizak voiced by kawa ada who is actually with adress when he first harassed nurullah he's the only friendly face in the taliban that pravana meets and wears his good nature openly while a lot of his fellow soldiers have forced theirs away this is best shown in the scene where he has the disguise pravana read a letter to him from one of his family members telling him that his wife was killed by a landmine at this point we're still unsure of his character even though he defended parvana and her father from idris in as subtle away as he could so i was expecting some hostility after she read the contents of the letter but he doesn't say a word he just stares at the ground trying his hardest not to break down right there and then gets up and leaves the next time we see him he pays parvana for her services and tells her about his wife hala after learning how to read her name sometimes on a clear night when you look at the moon you can see a bright outline around it that outline is called holla my wife was named for that light i would have been seven years old around the time this movie takes place unaware that there even was a country called afghanistan somewhere in the world a lot of my perceptions of the middle east were informed by the political climate i grew up in where we as americans didn't really see countries like afghanistan or iraq as places with people but more as hotbeds for terrorists and religious extremists i was never explicitly taught in school or church that every person in or from afghanistan was a monster who wished death upon me but i never really thought of these countries in terms of the people who lived there either stories like the breadwinner served to remind westerners like me of the circumstances a lot of normal people were living in during that time and help us to empathize with those we may have overlooked before stories are the one thing that humans all collectively share no matter where they come from that's something you hear often from professional authors college literacy professors and pretentious tv writers who really want that emmy there's nothing in the world more powerful than a good story it sounds corny but it's true it doesn't matter how specific that story is to a certain culture the act and art of telling that story resonates with everyone because we've all played the part of listener and storyteller at some point in our lives the story of the young boy that pravana tells throughout the movie is perhaps one of the more blatant and perfect ideas of this practice at the beginning of the movie nurella goes over pravana studies while they wait for a customer in the market but she admits that she has a hard time remembering them he proposes that they try to think of it as a story stories remain in our hearts even when all else is gone nirla is the kind of person who greatly enjoys telling stories it's probably the reason he became a teacher fatima also made a living as a writer before the taliban took over so stories play a big part in their household however parvana is reaching that age where she feels like she's starting to outgrow storytelling seeing it as impractical in the world she's living in it's only after their father is arrested and fatima is despondent that pravana starts to see their true use the story about the young boy and the elephant king is related throughout the movie most often by pravana but her mother takes over in one instance after parvana becomes too discouraged by a failed attempt to see her father at the prison parvana even finds herself telling the story to shazia to help them both through the work day and near-deadly encounter with adris as we hear more of the story we begin to draw more obvious parallels between its fiction and the life of pirvana's family more specifically we learn more about her older brother suleman who was killed during the civil war when he was around parvana's current age nobody in the family really talks about it but it's clear that suleiman's death is a cloud that still lingers over all of them it was probably one of the contributing factors to pravana trying to act more mature and dismiss stories as kid stuff but it's through these stories and giving the boy her brother's name that leads her to eventually coming to peace with his death and to give her courage when the americans invade afghanistan and another 20-year conflict begins the breadwinner doesn't answer a lot of questions by the time it reaches its conclusion in the short term we're given a somewhat hopeful ending but the long term raises troubling concerns as to the fate of parvana her family shazia and everybody else we meet in the movie that's the curse of hindsight that i mentioned before the curse that lingers over this movie like the cloud of suleiman's death over the family i had a vague notion at first to when this movie takes place but when i found out for certain it takes place in late 2001 i knew it was going to be rough i want to believe everybody made it out all right that they're all well away from the conflict that still plagues afghanistan today but the realistic likelihood of that is slim i suppose i should be grateful then that this is just the story a story with an ending open enough that i can interpret it with a positive outcome and i don't think it's entirely out of the question to hope for an ending like that i think the movie outright encourages it as parvona relearns the power of a good story we as the audience are reminded of it as well how we're so drawn to the conflict and victories of these literal drawings how the combination of powerful voice acting excellent character animation meaningfully relevant script and countless other contributions bring movies like this to life the majority of actors in this film aren't of afghan descent though you wouldn't know it just from listening to them this is mainly due to hiring kawaata who on top of voicing razak served as the dialect coach and is an afghan refugee himself it's doubtless that he and the rest of the crew took great care to present authentic accents for everyone involved and it's amazing how natural all of them sound sora chaudhry especially is a native-born canadian girl who never sounds like she's putting on a voice for the part that's something that's incredibly hard to do and something you never notice when it's done well nuren gulam gauss is an afghan refugee as well and there was an interesting decision to cast him in two very conflicting roles one being the aforementioned idris and the other being the representation of suleiman in parvana's story i think this casting is further meant to show how adress is deep down just a young boy who was pulled into this toxic mindset by the society he grew up in and if things were different he may have ended up more like suleiman or vice versa little things like that that make you really think about what these decisions mean for the characters is what makes this movie so engaging to dive into it can't be understated what a masterful debut this film is for nora toomey and how fitting it is to have a female director tell a story like this from a young girl's perspective an ample amount of that credit also goes to the screenwriter anita doran and of course the book's original author deborah ellis while none of them have lived the experience of a woman in afghanistan they still took the care and time to present this country and its people in a real and compassionate light i say all this because i know there are probably some people out there who will use this movie as confirmation bias to point at it and say see this is how they treat women over there what a terrible place what a terrible religion to say that is to miss the point of the movie entirely i believe that at its core the breadwinner is a story that's meant to remind us of our own struggles the oppressions we face in our society how following religious dogma or hyper-masculine ideals can corrupt anyone that there is always still good in people even when it doesn't seem like there's any good left in the world those living in america especially can't relate to the lives people have lived in afghanistan but my hope with movies like this is that we'll all begin to see that we're really not so different after all the breadwinner is available on dvd blu-ray and is currently streaming on [Music] netflix now where the breadwinner kind of snuck up on me as a film i was acutely more aware of the next film in tom moore's loose celtic mythology trilogy wolf walkers which i immediately latched on to upon seeing the conceptual trailer back in 2017 and comparing it to the conceptual trailer for song of the sea it's amazing how much even their concept trailers have improved in terms of animation a lot of what's in this trailer would more or less be translated seamlessly to the finished project sure the animation in the actual movie is a lot smoother and some of the character and location designs have been tweaked but it's just amazing to see the quality improve so much with each film they make so once again i eagerly awaited any news i could get about the movie i was a little discouraged when in 2018 it was announced that apple had bought the rights to the film for their upcoming streaming service apple tv plus that would launch in 2019 because as we all know what we needed the most in the year of arlor 2019 was another streaming service despite obtaining exclusive streaming rights it didn't seem like apple would impose any drastic story changes and krom knows cartoon saloon has never exactly made bank with their movies so like many things under capitalism i eventually had to shrug and say sure why not none of this shook my faith in tom moore by the way nor in co-director ross stewart who was the art director on the secret of kells and provided concept art for a song of the sea he also if you remember from the beginning of this video has been a long time friend of tom moore so it seems fitting he'd make his directorial debut alongside him the screenplay was also written by will collins who had written song of the sea so i saw no reason to think wolf walkers would be a disappointment well i'm sorry to say nah i can't even finish that lame fake out wolf walkers is a freaking triumph [Music] how do i even begin to express how beautiful this movie is that from the very first shot i knew i was in for what was probably the best looking cartoon saloon movie to date i mean it just looking at the snippets in the trailer is enough to give you an idea of how much this studio has advanced from the secret of kells over 10 years ago actually there's a lot in this movie that can be compared to kills what with the setting once again being in the distant past where celtic mythology was largely being replaced by christianity the main character is also a local child who befriends a girl from the forest with supernatural powers and sid forest is strictly off limits to the town for the fear of the unknown it represents most of the comparisons end at those parabasics however and i'd go so far as to say this movie addresses pretty much every complaint or nitpick i had with kells and fixes them tenfold robin goodfellow voiced by honor nepsi is a recent arrival from northern england to the town of kilkenny ireland her father bill voiced by sean bean is tasked to hunt the wolves in the forest outside of town by the lord protector a puritanical tyrant voiced by simon mcburney under the lord protector's rules robin is forced to stay inside the village and work in the scullery when she'd rather be in the forest and hunt with her father sneaking out to do just that one morning she accidentally shoots her pet falcon merlin during a wolf attack on the woodcutters she witnesses merlin being taken by a girl who seems to command the wolves and follows her to her pack where she's formally introduced to maeve the wolf walker voiced by eva whitaker though she accidentally bites robin while in her wolf form the two strike an unlikely friendship the more time they spend together and robin's opinion of the wolves is completely changed because of it her efforts to convince her father that the wolves and wolf walkers mean no harm fall on deaf ears as bill is reluctant to do anything against the lord protector's strict orders the situation becomes more complicated when robin falls asleep and awakens in a wolf's body though scared at first she soon realizes how liberating it is to be a wolf hardening her resolve to help maeve and her pack in any way she can but being a young girl in a time where women of any age were meant to be seen and not heard can she really change the mind of her father let alone the lord protector himself if it feels like i gave away a huge part of this movie by revealing robin becomes a wolf well blame the trailers they started it then again even in the conceptual trailer there's that shot of the spectral wolf hanging over her sleeping body so i guess if you were familiar with the lore then it wasn't much of a spoiler still the fact that she turns into a wolf is only a small part of the overall message this movie is trying to impart doing so by using a genius mixture of celtic mythology and real world history the first time i saw this movie was through the 65th annual cork film festival in ireland where i paid a measly 8 euros for the privilege now mr filmfreak i hear some of you ask you're obviously not irish how did you have access to a film festival in ireland well thanks to this video sponsor nordvpn you can i'm kidding i just use my vpn nobody's sponsoring me and thanks to the events of this year most international film festivals have switched to an online format which made my vpn invaluable to finally watch this movie at the end of the presentation of wolf lockers a pre-taped q a with directors tom moore and ross stewart played where they both talked about how the relationship between the wolf walkers of the forest and the people of kilkenny is mainly meant as an allegory for immigrants and the xenophobia they face from those who were there first the people in town especially the lord protector see the wolves as a pure evil and wish to drive them from the forest in order to expand their society in the lord protector's case especially he views it as his god-given duty to drive the wolves out of the forest and stamp out all sources of the pagan religions in favor of his harsh view of christianity using this view to drive the town to fear the wolves and silence those who oppose him it goes a bit deeper when you consider that robin and her father are also immigrants and they're not very popular in town because of it every so often robin will run into a couple of kids who show nothing but disdain towards her most of the towns show a similar amount of disdain for the lord protector himself but to get into that would be getting into a lengthy history lesson that we don't have time for right now the ultimate purpose of robin's friendship with maeve and becoming a wolf walker herself was to get across how fear and xenophobia can't really survive once you've gained perspective robin could empathize with maeve and her family's plight before but once she becomes a wolf and sees how liberating it is in the forest while being feared and hated in town that's when she can truly understand her new friend the art style of the film illustrates this contrast perfectly as well everything in kilkenny is very rigid and angular from the characters to the locations the wood block style of the town and the various shots that emphasize how small and caged in everyone is paints a not-so-subtle picture of how repressed robin feels throughout her daily routine in the village but as i said with song of the sea visual language doesn't have to be subtle to be excellent as is the case when robin is in the woods which has a much looser circular design and has a lot of more vibrant shades of green and brown where everything in the town is mainly a dull grey the character animation of maeve and the wolves is also much rougher than the humans in town having a much more round design overall with sketch lines intentionally left in that become harsher or softer depending on their mood it harkens back to the zorography process seen in old disney movies from the 60s and 70s and the designs of robin and maeve while in their wolf forms especially remind me of the character animation in the sword and the stone where arthur and merlin would retain much of their physical characteristics and primary colors while in the various animal forms they take throughout that movie now what exactly is zerography you may ask well it's the process where [Music] um it's when you take a photocopy of the thing and you put it in the thing and then have i mentioned i don't really know animation terms before well uh i mean we kind of had that discussion before about how it feels like even though the lion king and avatar are technically considered live action it doesn't matter anymore because everything is made in a computer it's all you know i want to argue in favor that star wars actually is animated because most of the content in star wars is actually animated it's all cgi puppetry special effects all that stuff we talk about here our destination we're just determined to make this a star wars podcast aren't we all the time yeah every single episode it turns into a song yeah we got to make this at star wars it's animated i want to talk about grogu hey guys oh hi jason were you two recording a video without me no of course not why why don't you say that no no we were we were just talking about star wars uh yeah yeah with with our microphones on facebook and you said you'd never talk about star wars on your channel so yeah of course we're not a star wars podcast anyway so i was wondering if you guys could explain xerography to me oh like disney xerography well yeah just like the animation process in general of zerography oh sure well as you probably figured it comes from xerox as in like the copy machines disney's creative process was that the animators would sketch out the pencil tests and then a team of artists would actually have to come in and ink over their lines to transfer it onto a cell of animation yeah so cells are like the clear sheets so they would literally trace the animators rough sketches onto the cell and that's what would be photographed for the animation now you no longer have to do that tracing the animator's drawings part you can just photocopy the animator's drawings directly onto the clear cells no ink and paint department necessary all right get lost you're fired scram get out of here [Music] that's right keep moving well except for the pain part they still needed people to paint but not ink check you you stay so that's why you see a lot of construction lines which is the sketch lines used to figure out the forms of the animated characters because i guess you would just clean up the animators drawings whereas when you traced onto the cell you don't have to do the cleanup because you're just tracing the important lines yeah also the machines that xeroxed they did not fall like it's hard to fully erase construction lines so even though they cleaned up the animated drawings when the xerox happened it works on either the toner sticks or it doesn't stick so it would catch the construction lines so that's why movies like 101 dalmatians you can see how sketchy they are they're so sketchy so sketchy it's so beautiful animation is beautiful we have a podcast about it shameless plug does that explain it yes it does thanks guys obviously star wars is an animation it's absolutely it's totally scary don't you yeah like ever since i found it while the allegory of the wolf walkers was mostly inspired by immigrants it can apply to pretty much any oppressed minority especially those who are marginalized by fundamentalists it's not altogether surprising then that a lot of lgbtq plus people have read a lot of queer themes into the movie as the oppressive society the lord protector and the church cultivate is not unlike those christian sects and people who deem all non-heterosexual cisgendered people as abhorrent and ungodly it's also not out of the question to equate robin and maeve's sense of freedom as wolves to that of transgender or non-binary individuals finding liberation in their gender identity that is outside the one they were assigned at birth this is especially potent as none of these people would be welcomed in the society that the lord protector you know what i'm tired of calling him that let's just get into the history for those unaware the character of the lord protector in this movie is based on oliver cromwell founder of the commonwealth of england which lasted from 1649 to 1660 two years after his death before then cromwell was a member of parliament during king charles the first ring and was an instrumental figure in his eventual execution after the second english civil war he established the commonwealth not long after charles's death but found himself leading a military campaign in ireland after royalists made a deal with the irish catholic confederation this campaign was controversial to say the least with cromwell's disdain for both catholic and pagan people meaning he was pretty indiscriminate as to who he and his soldiers killed between actual warriors and hapless villagers as such he's not exactly a popular historical figure in the emerald isle hence his inclusion as a straight up villain in wolf lockers which may remind a lot of people of the portrayal of judge claude frollo in disney's adaptation of the hunchback of notre dame minus the incel-ness getting back on topic cromwell's devout puritanism puts him at natural odds with the more mythological wolf walkers and the people of kilkenny follow him more from fear than actual respect or fondness bill in particular represents the kind of person who is governed by his fear even though he's not a bad man in the slightest from the scenes we get between him and robin in the beginning of the movie we can see that he's a caring and soft man who loves his daughter and wants the world for her but he has to adhere to the rules of the society if he wants to keep his job and relatively good position in town when robin tries to convince him that they don't have to hunt the wolves he refuses to listen and the animation starts to get rougher and sketchier to reflect the rising tension there's a great moment later on in one of their more heated arguments regarding the wolves where the borders of the screen start to close in around them reflecting how they both are caged by cromwell's harsh society bill flat out admits to robin that he's scared of what will happen to her if they don't comply with cromwell's orders in a heart-rending scene that gives sean bean a second chance to make me cry like a baby with how great an actor he is the performances of honor neepsy and eva whitaker can't be understated either their chemistry and the energy they put into robin and maeve respectively is what makes this movie so great there's a lot of subtle character tics and maeve's animation too that complement whitaker's gruff but vulnerable delivery especially in concern with her mother maul voiced by maria doyle kennedy for most of the movie maul is away in her wolf form while her human body sleeps in their den and maeve is clearly trying to hide her worry every time she's asked about what's happened to her she's the kind of kid who will hide her insecurities behind a rough and tough attitude but when she's alone she can't help but show her age and give in to her anxiety silently weeping while wrapping her mother's arms around her every cartoon saloon movie has such a great marriage of vocal and character performance from the actors and the animators that everything flows seamlessly you never think about how these children are just drawings on paper and after a while i stopped thinking about how ned stark or that really annoying boss from goldeneye 64 was playing robin's dad bill became a completely different person to me and so did the rest of the cast that's a great sign that the movie has done its job exceptionally well and talking about the animation have i spoken enough of how absolutely gorgeous this movie is i've spoken at length as to how each new cartoon saloon movie looks better than the last and this is by far their finest work in terms of animation alone there's the difference between the wood block style of kilkenny and the more loose feel of the forest that i mentioned before but there's also the scene where robin runs with maeve and the wolves set to a song by aurora that i swore was written for the movie for how perfect it fits with it in wolf vision the animation takes on an even rougher and sketchier look than before where the colors mesh together to create a somewhat blurred movement moore and stewart say in several interviews this scene was inspired by the studio ghibli film the tale of princess kaguya which featured one memorable scene where the titular character runs away from her oppressive society that looks exactly like wolf vision i dare say they took that fantastic sequence and made it look even better though making you feel like a wolf just like robin and experience it along with her also while this sequence or movie isn't the work of just one person alone there is one individual who helped with the animation of the wolves that really made this scene stick out james baxter james baxter baxter i want to keep my praise of this movie vague enough since as i'm writing the script it hasn't officially come out yet it's been released in select theaters back in mid-november and is set to release in theaters in ireland too for a limited time before becoming available on apple tv plus on december 11th and i would strongly encourage everyone to at least get the free trial to check it out i imagine a dvd and blu-ray release will happen at some point too but it's important that apple gets that stream business streaming internet flow whatever you call it and know that people really want to see this movie and i get that not all of us can or even want to pay for yet another streaming service but i know i'm gonna be first in line to get that free trial come the 11th and watch the piss out of this beautiful movie again if i had to quantify it i'd probably say it's my second favorite cartoon saloon movie after song of the sea but why even go there when all four of their movies have been solid gold all around alright alright calm down no matter what you end up doing please show your support for wolf walkers when it comes out support independent animation and help it thrive in the streaming wars who knows if it's really successful we may even see more traditionally animated movies in the near future if they're anything like this here's hoping i don't know a lot of people who would probably ask for a video like this especially from someone like me who doesn't have much of a presence here on youtube.com cartoon saloon is still relatively small in the world of animation and it seems like every time a new movie of theirs comes out there's always somebody who asks who are these guys that's not a bad thing i was one of those people too when i first discovered the secret of kells and each time i feel they've impressed me with their latest movie they always managed to pull off some new impressive feat with the next one that makes me reiterate the question who are these guys my hope in talking about each of their theatrical releases so far is that i'll at least answer the question for those not in the know for those lovers of animation and especially hand-drawn animation that wishes there were more movies that hearken back to that gorgeous style of drawing and cartoon saloon isn't even close to being done yet on their tv side they're set to release a show called viking school on disney plus and tom moore has mentioned that their preschool show puff and rock will be getting a movie soon for netflix there's also my father's dragon based on the children's book by ruth styles ganette directed once again by nora toomey it seems like there's a parallel pattern with cartoon saloon movies where i never hear much about the films toomey is doing until a few months before they come out that's strange i need to be more observant anyway the film is set to release on netflix sometime next year and i know next to nothing about it i don't know the plot of the original story i don't think i've even heard anyone cast in it yet but i know i'll be in great hands once i finally watch it nobody in this studio has let me down before and i think it'll be a long time before they finally do and even that's just a pessimistic guess on my part cartoon saloon is one of the best animation studios in the business today and their films deserve to be seen by a lot more people if you love animation or independent storytelling in general you owe it to yourself to set aside time and check out their entire filmography take a whole day even it should take less than 5 hours to watch all these movies sequentially i just love this company and can't recommend them more to anyone who will lend me an ear especially for this long whether it's about the friendship between a good christian boy and a fairy the reconciliation of a heartbroken family the relentless hardship and love of another or running freely with a pack of mythological wolves i always look forward to revisiting the movies of cartoon saloon and eagerly waiting with baited breath for the next one any day you

Channel: Film Freak

Views: 98,238

Rating: 4.9625978 out of 5

Keywords: Cartoon Saloon, Wolfwalkers, The Secret of Kells, Song of the Sea, The Breadwinner, animation, Tomm Moore, Nora Twomey, Ross Stewart, Angelina Jolie, Oliver Cromwell, gold, review, analysis

Id: m1dlJe6flSQ

Length: 81min 5sec (4865 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 03 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/King_inthe_northwest]

Timestamps:

0:00 Intro

1:25 Cartoon Saloon: A Brief History

5:35 How I Discovered Them

7:54 The Secret of Kells

23:16 It's Been 84 Years...

25:05 Song of the Sea

39:15 The Academy Awards Suck

42:29 The Breadwinner

59:34 The Cycle Continues

1:01:24 Wolfwalkers

1:18:13 My Father's Dragon and Beyond

Links to the bibliography and Film Freak's channel.