DCist’s highly subjective and hardly comprehensive guide to the most interesting movies playing around town in the coming week.
It seemed generally agreed when the Academy Award nominations came out earlier this year that the biggest surprise was the animation nomination for a little Irish cartoon that no one had even heard of before the announcement. And while it might never have had a chance at the big prize given the presence of films like Up and The Fantastic Mr. Fox, which were among the best films of the year, animated or not, The Secret of Kells fully deserves the recognition it got — and the larger potential audience it now has via a more expanded U.S. release than it might have otherwise received.
Kells takes place in a ninth century Irish abbey, as the monks there attempt to fortify the walls against the coming Viking scourge that threatens to eradicate them completely. They’re led by Abbot Cellach, a severe man with no time for fooling around, who thinks that his nephew Brendan’s interest in art, and in helping an elderly Abbot complete the illuminated religious text of The Book of Kells, is a waste of time and energy in dire and dangerous times. In order to help with the book, Brendan must journey into a forbidden forest to gather berries used for the ink, and along the way meets a fairie who doesn’t usually take kindly to intruders.
The film is well-written and successfully combines elements of history with fantasy, but the real marvel here is the animation. Co-directors Tomm Moore and Nora Twomey and their team create a highly stylized world that incorporates traditional Irish imagery and ornamentation in inventive ways, while taking advantage of the medium by never being slaves to the notion of recreating any kind of realistic vision. Characters take on exaggerated and impressionistic shapes that are reflections of who they are rather than depictions of a recognizable world. A few digital flourishes are thrown in here and there, but for the most part, everything is hand drawn, and Kells proves, both in its story and in the way that it’s told, how much magic there is in the simplicity of pen and ink.
View the trailer.
Opens tomorrow at E Street.
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As we mentioned in yesterday’s Arts Agenda, the Smithsonian’s American Art Museum is opening an exhibit this weekend dedicated to looking back at Jeanne-Claude & Christo’s massive 1976 installation, The Running Fence. One documentary was already made about the work, the Maysles brothers’ 1978 film of the same name, which was the second of five films the brothers made about the artists’ works. Six, if you count Albert Maysles’ film about The Gates, made after his brother’s death. Their camera sat back and watched as the idiosyncratic pair navigated the complex process of negotiations involved in getting this work from concept to reality, capturing both the mundane bureaucratic work necessary as well as the majestic results. For this look back, the museum has also commissioned a new film about the work, by Wolfram Hissen, in which the filmmaker goes back to the site of the work, and examines the project with the benefit of over three decades of history, interviewing many of those who were involved at the time. Both Hissen and Christo will be on hand to discuss the film after it premieres tomorrow night (Jeanne-Claude passed away this past November).
Running Fence Revisited screens tomorrow at 7 p.m. at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. The Maysles’ original 1978 The Running Fence screens next Thursday at 6:30 p.m. Both will be shown regularly in the exhibition galleries as part of the exhibit. Friday’s premiere is free, but tickets are required, and will be handed out on a first come, first served basis beginning at 6 p.m. in SAAM’s G Street lobby.
