Song of the Sea: A (Feminist) Review
I wrote this review for my Film Review class with L.A. Times critic Kenneth Turan. My goal for this piece was to take a movie I really liked and find one little thing, which didn’t work for me. Here’s how it went…
Some movies excite you so much that you want to leap out of your seat applauding when the credits start to roll. Others bore you so much that you fall asleep slouching into your chair. And others make you border on that space between sleeping and waking, nightmare and dream.
Director Tomm Moore’s “Song of the Sea” is one such film. A poetic ode to Irish folklore and hand-drawn animation, the now Oscar-nominated film follows the adventures of Ben and his Selkie, (half-human, half-seal), little sister, Saoirse (Sheer-sa), as they travel to and from their father’s lighthouse in search of Saoirse’s magical coat. Its recovery is key, as its mystical properties will save both Saorise and Ireland’s pantheon of fairies and mythic heroes from death and destruction in the modern world.
Entering this dreamscape, (set in seaside Ireland), for the first time might seem like unfamiliar territory to the untrained eye, or the gaze long unacquainted with hand-drawn animation. Though stained richly in vibrant watercolors, Moore’s world, (realized by artistic director Adrien Merigeau), is a flat one in which the characters are pancaked against the backdrop, onto a single plane. Like acclimating to Apple’s latest, (a.k.a. flattest), system update, it takes some time to adjust to this depthless environment, but the film’s exquisitely drawn landscapes of the Irish countryside and richly rendered deep blue seas more than make up for the jarring entry. Hypnotic music by Bruno Coulais, layered with haunting flutes and Gaelic vocals, lulls one further into this dream-like vision.
Even though Moore’s universe is lushly backlit, his saucer-eyed creation, Saoirse, is a painfully infantile creature, in no fit shape to save the day.
A six-year-old, mute child, Saoirse, (Lucy O’ Connell voices her sparing gasps and occasional singing), is cute, but not the most riveting of heroines. Aside from boldly venturing by her self into the ocean, she’s often the one being rescued. Her older brother Ben (David Rawle) plays the knight-in-shining armor at the film’s dramatic highpoints.
Ben’s devotion to his sibling is truly admirable, even heartwarming at times, but it does not make up for Saoirse being little more than a younger, sisterly version of a Manic-Pixie-Dream-Girl — her Emma Stone-size eyes there to give her an appropriately doe-eyed look, her muteness to render her suitably speechless, and her affinity with Ireland’s magical world meant to encourage her brooding brother to embrace life’s mysteries and adventures.
Though complaints have been leveled at even the most “feminist” of Disney princesses, (and I use that word with reservation), if Saoirse were put into the ring against “Brave” or “Frozen’s” heroines, she would still be trounced by Merida’s strong will and frosted by Elsa’s let-go-of-it-all-attitude.
Saorise’s adorable looks alone couldn’t save her in such a match up, because — unlike these other ladies — she’s still a damsel-in-distress throughout the film, rescued at almost every critical turn. (How, I’ll leave to your imagination, if you still insist on seeing this film and taking your artistically-inclined-precocious-aspiring-animator-child with you.)
Creating a “feminist” cartoon probably wasn’t on Tomm Moore’s agenda, but just because we revisit traditional folklore for inspiration, does not mean that we should replicate their stereotypical gender roles for a contemporary audience. Anna and Elsa’s tale of sister-love triumphing over all was refreshing — a breath of fresh air in an animated world, dominated by the downright feudal Disney kingdom — but Moore’s similarly themed tale of sibling-love just doesn’t get around those pesky gender roles ingrained into almost every (Western) fairytale. And for me, that alone, makes this story less alternative and more mainstream, in spite of its eye-boggling design.
Though “Song of the Sea” is a charming, heartfelt story about a brother and sister’s love, the feminist in me can’t fully recommend “Song of Sea” without alerting you to Saoirse’s feminist flaws — too bad that such flat characters exist in an otherwise stunning visual world.
