If you're unfamiliar with either 2D animation studio Cartoon Saloon or director Tom Moore, hop on over to Netflix and watch Song of the Sea as quick as you can.
Now that you're all caught up, Wolfwalkers is the new Cartoon Saloon joint from the same team.
It's also a masterpiece.
Once upon a time, there was a girl, a wolf, a hunter, and a wood.
You've heard this story before, but you haven't, not really. Wolfwalkers lives in the same dream spaces as familiar animated faerie tale classics, but rather than sticking to the well-worn paths of Disney cartoon musicals, it wanders deeper into hidden corners to evoke the folk stories that inspired them. It's not hard to see where the shape of the tale will lead, but the way the film finds its way is where it really makes its mark.
The titular Wolfwalkers are introduced in the film's opening scene, as Moll MacTire (Outlander and Black Mirror's Maria Doyle Kennedy) and her daughter Mebh (Eva Whittaker) appear to a group of Irish woodcutters during a wolf attack - the red-haired women calming the wolves and healing wounds with strange powers, before disappearing back into the wood. Not long after, Robyn Goodfellowe (Honor Kneafsey) moves with her father (Sean Bean) from England to Kilkenny, Ireland, where her father is tasked with hunting down the wolves in the nearby forest so the townspeople can clear the wood. Robyn wants to help her father hunt, but the elder Goodfellowe forbids it, but we all know that there's nothing that's going to keep her from those trees, don't we?
Naturally, it's not long before Robyn ventures into the forest and runs into Mebh, discovering that not only is Mebh able to talk with the wolves and turn into a wolf when she sleeps, but that this ability has accidentally been passed to Robyn as well. The visualization of just about everything to do with the wolves is a treat for animation buffs, from the way the animals move like liquid across the alternately detailed and impressionistic landscapes of 17th century Ireland to the POV shots of startling color and bold lines accomplished using charcoal and pencil drawings. Characters will "drop" frames to emphasize movement, model shapes and sketch lines are often left visible, and even the coloring is deliberately offset to evoke the feel of imperfectly-printed period wood carvings. Wolfwalkers doesn't feel visually at odds with The Secret of Kells and Song of the Sea, but represents a significant stylistic leap forward for Moore and co-director Ross Stewart, and practically every frame of the film makes me want to frame it and hang it on my wall.
What make these visuals more than pleasant scenery is the finely-observed character work and deftly woven narrative that brings the drawings to life. It would be glibly reductive (if not wholly innacurate) to claim the film is something akin to Disney's The Huncback of Notre Dame and Princess Mononoke smashed into a single movie, as that would be useless in conveying how gracefully the story unwinds. Wolfwalkers certainly "works" just as neatly as the most well-oiled jeweled watch screenplays from the Disney or Pixar dream factory, but carries the same sense of abandon and discovery that made Song of the Sea feel so fresh. Not only are arcs clearly dramatized with Big Moments (the way Robyn's father tries to protect her informing how Robyn acts during the Big Turning Point into Act 3 springs to mind), but the film is also riddled with the small touches of unexpected humor, carelessly casual "plants" for later payoff, well-meaning cruelty, and fanciful detours that make it feel "grown" rather than crafted.
I don't use words like "grown" or references to Princess Mononoke lightly, because this film is about as shy as Hayao Miyazaki's own fiery heroines when it comes to making a point. Aside from the triumphantly obvious environmental message, Wolfwalkers looks its child audience in the eye and tells them to speak out against those who would rule through the bloody machinery of fascism, to try looking at the world through the eyes of those you've been told to fear. In many ways, the broad shape of the story makes this the most accessible of Moore and Stuart's Celtic Mythology Triptych, but it also has the darkest shadows. Simon McBurney's "Lord Protector" (he's never technically called "Cromwell" during the film, but...) would fit comfortably alongside the more disturbing Disney villains like Judge Frollo, and the film doesn't shy away about how easy it is to hurt the ones we're trying to keep safe.
Allowing the danger to hold its edge while maintaining a measured "family fantasy" tonal balance is impressive even after Kells and Sea. As the filmmaker's longest feature, Wolfwalkers weaves an impressive number of elements (part period piece, part environmental movie, part father/daughter movie, part coming of age movie, part city kid/country kid movie, part werewolf movie) into a gorgeous folklore epic that is equally timeless and timely. It's like seeing an alternate timeline where Fantasia was a bigger hit and Disney was able to be a bit more wEirD by the time it hit the '90s Renaissance - not because Wolfwalkers is an animated musical (it's not, though Bruno Coulai's music is brilliant, and there's a non-diagetic song that's a real bop) - but because of the way it calls to mind those alchemical moments when the combination of moving pictures and sound really landed.
Wolfwalkers doesn't just stick that landing, time and again - it does so at a full sprint, running wild and free.
*Wolfwalkers premiered on the American Film Institute's virtual film festival "AFI Fest" on October 17th, and will be available on Apple TV+ December 11th.
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