Song of the Sea.
This serene, quiet, but adventurous tale based off of the Irish legend of the selkie. Here's some plot:
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In 1981, 4-year old Ben lives in a lighthouse by the seaside of Dublin, Ireland with his dog Cu, his father Conor, and his very pregnant mother, Bronagh. Bronagh tells Ben many stories of Irish legends, and Ben promises that his new sibling and him will be best friends. Bronagh agrees with this, just as she tucks him into bed.
However, in the middle of the night, Ben wakes up to find his mother apparently in labor, and her hair turning white. She apologizes to him, before running out of the house and into the sea as his father gives chase. His father later returns with his newborn daughter and Ben's new sister, who is named Saoirse (SER-sha), but his mother is never seen again.
Six years later, the once happy family lies in shambles. Conor has had a tough time dealing with the disappearance and presumed death of Bronagh and has turned to alcohol for solace (though not to the point one might think). The only light in his life is Saoirse (due to her resemblance to Bronagh), who he lavishes with fatherly affection.
Unfortunately, in the process, he has grown emotionally distant from Ben and constantly reminds him of the responsibilities of being a big brother. This, coupled with Ben's belief that Saoirse was the cause of their mother's disappearance (since she was born the same night it happened), has led him to treat his little sister with resentfulness and contempt, and boss and pick on her at every turn. Also, he has developed a fear of swimming, due to his father warning him that he'd get swept away or something like that.
Saoirse, on her part, has her own issue: though she is turning six, she has yet to speak a single word. This becomes one of the pet peeves that Ben goes through when dealing with her.
On the night her sixth birthday, Saoirse discovers a shell flute (given to Ben by their mother) and a shiny, mystical coat, puts on the later, and goes swimming in the ocean with a group of seals...and magically turns into one in the process. It is then revealed that she is a beautiful white Selkie—a mythological being that lives as a human on the land and as a seal underwater—and implies that her mother was one as well (which might have been part of the cause of her disappearance).
Unfortunately, her father and grandmother end up discovering her nighttime swim. Conor, not wanting to lose his children the way he lost his wife, sends them to live with their grandmother in the city and locks Saoirse's coat in a trunk and tosses into the ocean. What he doesn't know, however, is that by separating her from her coat and the ocean, he has triggered a sudden illness that starts to over take Saoirse as time passes.
Ben and Saoirse then decide to find their way back home. As the journey goes by, they connect with each other more, reunite with their dog Cu, fall into a magical realm, and learn more about Saoirse's Selkie heritage, including some very important details: Saoirse, as a Selkie, has to perform a song in order to save and free more fairies and mythical beings from a malevolent but ultimately misguided owl witch named Macha, who distraught over the loss of her own son years earlier, has resorted to stealing and sealing away the beings' emotions (hoping to spare them feeling the pain of loss) and petrifying them to stone in the process.
But several problems are at hand: Saoirse cannot sing until she finds her voice. And she cannot truly find her voice until she finds her coat. And without it, she becomes sicker and weaker with each passing second. And worse, Macha aims to capture and petrify Saoirse.
Together, Ben and Saoirse must journey through the realm and overcome fear, illness, and Macha to complete their destiny and save all of mythical-being kind.
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WARNING: SPOILERS BELOW!
Read at your own risk!
The animation from the film is like a living storybook almost, and the character and background designs certainly reflect this. The mixture of CGI-imagery and hand-drawn animation gives the film a charming and modernized look.
The plot of the film has a formulaic narrative structure. This in away does rob it of some of it's potential, since it sort of feels that it has been borrowed. The writers clearly did try to avoid common clichés in the film as seen when like when Ben confronts Macha over her actions, and doesn't try to beat her up, but rather tries to take some sense into her. Despite this the plot did have it's beautiful, and heartwarming and breaking moments, all of which pushed me to love this film even more.
The tone of the film, as I said in the beginning is very Hayao Miyazaki-ish and almost makes me feel that he's the driving force behind the film, even though he's not. Being a fan of Miyazaki and his work, I do have to say, writer/director Tomm Moore could definitely be the Irish Miyazaki since this is his second consecutive animated film to be nominated for an Oscar (after The Secret of Kellis in 2010).
The soundtrack is beautiful, just beautiful, especially the theme song (which always made me cry).
The biggest themes of the film are family, loss, sibling rivalry, courage, letting go, and healing.
Family takes full center of the film, with Ben's family starting off as happy and content. Following his mother's disappearance, the family becomes crumbled and broken, as his father grieves in seclusion, and he is forced to look after Saoirse constantly, a task that he comes to resent along with her. However, the magical journey and the climax finally tie up these loose ends, and by the end the family has mended ends and grown happy and close again.
Loss is also big in center, with Bronagh's disappearance being felt by everyone: Conor becoming withdrawn from the world and distant from his remaining family, his own mother insisting that the children have a better life with her. Ben resenting his sister due to her birth occurring on the same night as her disappearance, and Saoirse's curiousity about the heritage and mother she's never known. Loss also drives Macha the owl witch, who has suffered since her son (Mac Lir, a giant fairy) was turned to stone after a great loss, and steals people's feelings and petrifies them to spare them the same pain.
Sibling rivalry also drives the film, in regard to Ben and Saoirse's relationship. Ben, for the most part, holds his sister in contempt, blaming her birth for their mom's vanishing. He bosses her around, ignores her on occasion, and takes the best opportunities to pick on her (such as when he ruins her birthday cake by pushing her face into it just as she blows out the candles). Saoirse, on the other hand, doesn't seem to be truly affected by her brother's behavior. Though she does get annoyed on several occasions with the way he acts with her in the film, she still treats him with love and admiration.
As the two make their magical journey back home, their relationship improves greatly as they look out for each other, and Ben truly begins to be the brother his mom had envisioned he would, and after seeing a memory vision of everything that happened the night of his mother's disappearance and Saoirse's birth, he drops his animosity towards her completely and strives to help her get better and achieve her destiny.
The end of the film sees the family celebrate Ben's birthday some months later, with Saoirse speaking more and Ben fully embracing the big brother role. Of course, Saoirse takes this opportunity to get a little playful revenge on Ben for what he did to her on her birthday, by doing the same thing to him (pushing his face into his cake just as he blows the candles out), earning some laughs from everyone, even Ben. The final scene shows the two siblings, now closer than ever before, swimming and playing in the ocean with their dog Cu, and their seal friends.
Courage has a small part in the film. This mostly attains to Ben's fear of swimming, which overcomes him on multiple occasions. The fear was instilled to him by his father Conor following his mother's disappearance, so that way neither of his children would be taken by the ocean like his wife was. This fear often prevent him from taking action. However, at the climax, with Saoirse near death from not having her coat, he, desperate to save her, conquers his fear and jumps into the ocean to retrieve it.
Finally, letting go and healing come in near the end, when after Saoirse finally finds her Selkie voice, sings her song, and saves the mythical beings, Bronagh re-appears (having been living in the ocean in Selkie seal form all those years) to take her daughter to the magic realm with her and the others. Ben and Conor try to talk her out of it, and Saoirse voices her desire to stay with the rest of her family. Because she is half-human, her wish is granted, and Bronagh assures her family that she will always love them before leaving.
This encounter finally gives Conor, Ben, and Saoirse the closure they've needed and the start they've craved on the path to healing, and in the epilogue, which takes place sometime later, they've all grown together as a family again as they celebrate Ben's birthday.
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The one thing about this film is, that the final scene (which is adorable by the way), should have been made longer, and really established the now-firm sibling relationship.
Overall, this is a film I recommend for families and Miyasaki-vibe fans. I give this film a 10/10 and recommend that you SEE/BUY IT!
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