Song of the Sea (2015)
March 26, 2015 - “Children deserve not lesser films but greater ones because their imaginations can take in larger truths and bigger ideas.” So film critic Roger Ebert wrote in his review of 1994’s The Secret of Roan Inish, a story of a young Irish girl who learns that her family tree includes a few selkies, the magical half-human, half-seal creatures of Irish folklore. As The Wizard of Oz, The Iron Giant, and the best works of Pixar and Studio Ghibli attest, however, when made well, these children’s films resonate just as deeply with adults.
As does Song of the Sea, the new Oscar-nominated animated film from director Tomm Moore. It creates a splendid and disturbing world in which children triumph, not through naïveté or some immaculate purity, but through courage, love, and an openness to that which they cannot easily understand. (The film is Song of the Sea currently playing now at the Bow Tie Criterion Cinemas, 86 Temple St.)