Last year, when my husband and I were watching the Oscars, we both quizzically turned to each other and repeated, “The Secret of Kells?” once the film was announced. We’ve always seen every animated film nominated for an Oscar, and we’d never even heard of this one—how could that be?

 Recently we started using Netflix again—it was sort of a Christmas present to our family after nearly a year of taking a break from the service to save money—and we decided to rent the film. We watched it with our daughter, which wasn’t a good idea, as it had some very dark parts; thankfully she fell asleep on me long before most of them were shown, having woken up at an ungodly hour that day.

The Secret of Kells is an animated film that tells the story of Brendan, a young Irish boy who lives with monks inside a protected medieval outpost. He’s never seen the forest and is very curious about it, but his uncle and guardian, the Abbott, forbids it, deeming it too dangerous.
After a sacred text and its writer arrive at the outpost in order to be protected from invading Vikings, Brendan is asked to venture into the woods to find a certain pigment for the book—and in doing so, he starts to become a man, and battles a serpent god, befriends a wolf fairy, Aisling, and ultimately saves the Book of Kells from being destroyed.

The movie was unlike any other I’ve ever seen; for lack of better term, I’d like to call it Celtic Animation. Just as anime has certain characteristics, so did this film. The animation was simply incredible and unique. Long, straight noses and fingers—almost resembling small blocks of wood—are reminiscent of wood cuttings and art of the medieval period in Ireland. Swirling, lovely images of Celtic mandalas, shapes and spirals are found throughout the whole movie—mostly in the wild pagan forest, such as in the leaves of the trees.

While I would have preferred to see more females portrayed in the film, Aisling, the wolf shape shifter who assists Brendan throughout this adventure, is one of the most amazing characters I’ve ever seen in animation. We would do well to create more like her and her power, courage, and compelling presence. The film  itself is stunning, though as I mentioned before, not appropriate for young eyes, as there is plenty of violence and some scary images.