Song of the Sea

Song of the Sea (PG)

Ireland/Denmark/Belgium/Luxembourg/France 2014 93 mins Dir: Tomm Moore Cast (voices): David Rawle, Brendan Gleeson, Fionnula Flanagan, Lisa Hannigan

What a glorious golden age for animation this is. Already this year alone, we’ve had the thrilling CGI antics of Disney’s brilliant Big Hero 6 and the beautifully impressionistic designs of Studio Ghibli’s The Tale of the Princess Kaguya, with Pixar’s widely acclaimed Inside Out just around the corner. Each of these movies stakes out a unique corner within the animated realm – but even among such formidable company, director Tomm Moore’s visually luscious Song of the Sea stands out as a uniquely emotional and sweeping experience.

The filmmaker draws on the haunting painterly designs of his 2009 Oscar nominee The Secret of Kells for another story resplendent in a sense of rich mythology and folklore. Indeed, the visuals are perfectly tailored to the storyline, transcending reality to depict a universe where the fantastical and the real exist side-by-side. In this sense, it bears more than a passing comparison to its Studio Ghibli brethren: this is not a movie that derives pleasure from a linear, logical narrative but instead from waves of emotion.

The story focuses on young boy Ben (voiced by Moone Boy’s David Rawle), who lives with his mute sister Saoirse and his widowed father (Brendan Gleeson) in a lighthouse off the coast of Ireland. There is an undisclosed tragedy hanging over the family involving Ben and Saoirse’s mother, although the details don’t emerge until later on. When their grandmother arrives to take them back to the mainland with the aim of bringing them up properly, Ben is distraught, and more than a little perturbed by the actions of his young sibling who appears to have deep, mysterious connections with the sea.

It’s this dawning realisation of Saoirse’s wondrous abilities that prompts the two siblings to venture back across the country to their father, and the watery redemption that awaits. Needless to say, it’s a journey peppered with wondrous, strange creatures, from selkies to menacing owls and much more besides. Yet even as the storyline appears to become increasingly untethered from reality, it’s continually brought back down to Earth by the beautifully humane story at its centre. Along the way Ben learns to love his sister, with whom he shares a fractious and palpably believable relationship, and hovering in the background is the presence of his late mother, something that builds to a genuinely moving climax.

Never over-awed by its scrumptiously detailed designs, this is a compassionate and impressive work, beautifully voiced by an excellent cast, funny and touching by turns. Jeanie mac, indeed.