For the audience who really like animation, Tom Moore and cartoon salon is a presence that cannot be missed, this animation company known as Ghibli in Europe is really not much to say, the first two works of the Irish folk tale trilogy created before, "The Secret of the Book of Kells" and "Song of the Sea", with deep cultural heritage, beautiful audio-visual presentation, and unique ideological connotations, are regarded as classics by a large number of netizens, which can be described as tireless.
After several years of disobedience, cartoon salon continued to write brilliantly, and the third part of the trilogy, "Wolfwalker", was well received as soon as it debuted, receiving 110 award nominations including the Oscar for Best Animation, and receiving 37 awards, with a rare freshness of 98% on Rotten Tomatoes, which was a jaw-dropping result.
What supports this achievement is the veritable artistic height, the more mature and full hand-painted surface, creating a huge visual and spiritual double shock from beginning to end. From the beginning, the injured hunter is frightened by the wolves and collapses, but is helped by the wolfwalker, tearing wolf teeth, mysterious healing ability, through the hunter's perspective, emerges a mysterious and ancient, magical and dangerous jungle world. The world of Wolfwalker is like an isolated universe, which makes the viewer panic over the unknown huge energy behind it, and at the same time, there is a desire to explore and open up.
This is probably the most primitive and real reaction of human beings to nature. Just as the little girl Robin's father Bill and the protector behind him, after completing the conquest between humans, pointed their shotguns at the forest to kill the wolves and get more resources. Under the influence of his father, the young Robin once dreamed of becoming a heroic hunter and proving himself by fighting, until he met the wolfwalker girl Miba, two peers of different camps gradually learned the truth of the world in the process of communication, and finally made a bold move that seemed to be "deviant".
In fact, cartoon salon company's previous works "The Secret of the Book of Kells" and "Song of the Sea" are also about the story of rebellion, showing that children do not adapt to the rules and control of artificial establishment in the process of growing up, and try to find their innocence by running away. Whether it is Bledan who has stepped out of the tall wall, or the little brother and sister who have set off from the city on an expedition back to the sea, they have broken through the shackles of the environment full of red tape and found the growth of the blue sea and the blue sky. "Wolfwalker" can be said to be a step further, through The Counterattack of Robin and Miba against the Protector General, the Final Fantasy of the Girl Saving the World is realized, in order to break through thorns and sinister adventures, defend the fairy tale law that the childlike heart can defeat everything, and make the complexity, hypocrisy, greed, conquest and killing of adults invisible.
In terms of connotation, the film has a deep taste and interpretation space, including reflection on the colonial era, reverence for the pastoral jungle, and rich Irish cultural heritage, and the basis for realizing these ideas is the strong artistic achievements of the creative team, each frame can be taken out and framed as an exhibition or decoration of the picture, which is mesmerizing to see people, and the strong epic temperament is about to come out. The soundtrack, composed by Brunocules, sometimes circuitous and sometimes solemn, brings a strong audiovisual experience, and experiences a different kind of adventure in the seemingly simple but but actually grand light and shadow.
The film also through the wolf's adherence to the forest, to reflect the complexity of human beings, the two love and kill each other, in fact, it does not matter who is right, are the survival rules of nature, in recent years, including "Wolf Totem", "Wolf Plague" and the French film "Wolf" have similarities, from different angles to surface the relationship between wolves and people, the success of "Wolf Walker" is that there is no high talk, but in-depth and simple, do not instill superficial theory, the friendship, awakening and resistance of the two girls in the film, it is wonderful enough, To make it extreme both good-looking and profound, it's no exaggeration to say that Wolfwalker has pre-booked the best animated film of the year.