Saw Song of the Sea, a beautifully animated film by studio Cartoon Saloon who also produced The Secret of Kells. With the Kells movie, it was similarly gorgeous but I felt it was a little too incoherent - it wasn't clear to me what the production of the book would accomplish or how it would help stop the barbarian hordes. All that is fixed with Song of the Sea which is perfectly supplied with mirrored characters, a clear theme of loss and the pain of healing, together with wonderful and eerie Irish magical creatures.
The film follows a lighthouse keeper who lives with his son and pregnant wife on a tiny island. The wife has complications during child birth and produces a mute little girl who the son hates as a symbol of his missing, beloved mother and whose father over-protects, as a symbol of the last piece of his wife he has left. I don't think it's a spoiler exactly, but after about fifteen minutes of film it becomes clear the mother is a selkie - this sets up the sea and water in general as a powerful symbol of loss and of uncontrolled emotion.
Indeed, control over emotion becomes the central struggle of the film. The antagonist is revealed to be literally bottling up negative (and positive) emotions to spare everyone the trouble of fully experiencing a painful world. The scene with the antagonist is also the most compelling both in terms of animation and story. I was reminded of the various showdowns with Yubaba in Spirited Away in the mixture of grotesque and threatening animation on display.
This film is really good - it looks good, it's funny, it's creepy, it tells a good story, it doesn't even shy away from real emotions - all the good things! I loved it!
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