'Secret of Kells' comes to life with bright, imaginative spirit

Los Angeles Times / latimes.com ^ | April 2, 2010 | By KENNETH TURAN Film Critic

[thecodont]

"The Secret of Kells" is an anachronism many times over, and what a good thing that turned out to be.

A ravishing, continually surprising example of largely hand-drawn animation in the heyday of computer-generated imagery, an inexpensive and sophisticated European production in an age of broad-stroke studio films, even a spirited defense of books and bookishness while Kindles walk the earth, "Kells" fights the tide every way it can.

Yet this longshot that began as a college project for Irish director Tomm Moore edged Hayao Miyazaki's "Ponyo" for one of five feature animation Oscar nominations, and in a year without Pixar's "Up," might even have won. That's how magical this story of a boy and a book turned out to be.

The book is the Book of Kells, a circa AD 800 illuminated manuscript whose recounting of the four gospels was so dazzlingly decorated and illustrated (in part by the monks at the abbey of Kells) that it's universally regarded as one of Ireland's national treasures.

[SunkenCiv]

Unpostable source, interesting article -- St John’s Gospel and the first few pages of St Mark’s Gospel were produced on the Scottish island of Iona, then there were some problems with the Vikings and smallpox, and the work was continued about 50 years later at Kells:

• Book of Kells: History of world’s most famous medieval manuscript rewritten after dramatic new research