Vigorously black and white entertainment
Tom Moore's work does not see the shadow of modern film industrialization, and the visual effect is closer to traditional European painting, back to basics, rustic and natural, bright and vivid, like a carefully polished craft. To the audience, it is like a volume of colored paintings collected by children, reflecting the beautiful fantasies of childhood about the non-real world.
Author: Vigorously
Edit: Blue Two
Layout: Wang Wei
Maiden and Wolf.
Usually, a cute and weak, a fierce and brutal, is a set of contrasting extreme imagery.
But in the animated film Wolfwalker, they "merge into one" and produce a wonderful energy response.
On July 3, this hand-drawn style work co-directed by Tom Moore and Rose Stewart officially landed in theaters nationwide and was highly anticipated by animation fans.
As the finale of Tom Moore's "Irish Folktale Trilogy", Wolfwalker, like The Secret of the Book of Kells and Song of the Sea, is inspired by the ancient legends of his hometown.
The film tells the story of the young girl Robin who goes into the forest alone to find the wolf in order to prove herself to the hunter's father, but meets Miba, a girl who can transform into a wolf, in the forest, and the two then work together to save the forest.
Unlike the previous two works, in the world of Wolfwalker, there are no elves who can master magic, but instead wolfwalkers who can transform into wolves and guide wolves. This invisibility adds a sense of slaughter and might to the film, highlighting the cruel laws unique to jungle space and closer to the adult world.
In the production dimension outside the story, Wolfwalker continues Tom Moore's usual extreme hand-drawn style, while the lines, composition and colors are bolder. The overall presentation is a combination of artistic height, dramatic point of view, philosophical meaning and Irish regional characteristics.
It is not difficult to see that Tom Moore has a deep love for his homeland and a strong sense of national pride. This heavy feeling was embodied through his artistic talent, transformed into animation works, and climbed to the top film festivals, breaking through the language restrictions and promoting Irish culture to the world.
As a result, following The Secret of the Book of Kells and Song of the Sea, Wolfwalker was nominated for the 93rd Academy Awards for Best Animated Feature, with a total of 110 nominations including the Oscars, as well as 37 top international film awards, including the International Film Association Critics Award and the American Animation Annie Award.
Compared with the current common 3D CG animation, Tom Moore's works can not see the shadow of modern film industrialization, rarely use perspective, nor modeling, the visual effect is closer to traditional European painting, back to basics, simple and natural, bright and vivid, like a carefully polished craft, every frame is the painstaking effort of craftsmen.
For the audience, it is like a color painting scroll collected by a child, within reach, as if it were a treasure, reflecting the beautiful fantasies of childhood to the non-real world. The picture in front of you is a hand-painted color, and the texture of the unbridled flow is no longer only in the mind.
Growing Up a Girl: Interpreting Big Themes in Small Contexts
The story of "Wolf Walker" is not very contextual, but the pattern is not small, short and concise. This has to make people sigh that the background of folk tales in various places is extraordinary, and it can be passed down to this day, with profound philosophical meaning and literary value.
The main scenes of the film are the residential areas inside the city walls and the jungle areas outside the city walls. The city was controlled by the invaders "Protectors", and the people were oppressed; outside the city was the main living area of the wolves. Important players are active in both regions.
Among them, the most depicted is naturally the protagonist girl Robin.
It can be said that there are two themes of Wolfwalker. The first is to express the values of harmonious coexistence between man and nature, anti-colonialism and anti-aggression with the help of the contradiction between humans and wolves. The second is that through the change of Luobin's state of mind, it shows the growth process and personality charm of the girl. This article would like to focus on the latter, because in peacetime, this is more universal.
Dressed in a dark cloak, Robin jumps up and down with a bow and arrow in her hand, practicing shooting wolves in the house, like a young female warrior. But after the hunter's father returned home, he instantly staged "one second to become virtuous", lying that he was doing housework. Unfortunately, the dirty plates and floors "betrayed" her.
In just a few minutes of the plot, The image of Robin has been established. As a girl, her appearance is gentle and soft, her heart is brave and courageous, and she yearns to punish the evil and eliminate the evil, which has the feeling of "who said that women are inferior to men".
However, the "reserve" hunter's behavior was not recognized by her father, and the moment his father put on a workmaking turban, it heralded that her ideals were bound. But Robin was not willing to do this, and in order to prove himself, he found an opportunity to take a bow and arrow and walked into the jungle.
From this point of view, the cultures of the East and the West are integrated, and Luobin does not accept defeat, is not defined, and does not succumb to the traditional side, some like China's Mulan, they all have the beautiful qualities that are not easy to be discovered by the majority of young girls in reality.
Of course, the ideal is plump, and the reality is bone. Although Luobin "newborn calves are not afraid of tigers", after all, she lacks practical experience, and when she entered the forest for the first time, she not only did not succeed in shooting wolves, but also almost killed her bird partner, which was very embarrassing.
Saion lost his horse, and he knew that it was not a blessing. Perhaps because of Robin's innate kindness and adventurous spirit, she stepped into the deep jungle because she wanted to find the bird, and because of this, she met another heroine of the film, the wolf walker girl Miba.
Here, there will be a voice on the Internet: this kind of "born city people" meets "wilderness natives" The setting is usually a man and a woman, and due to certain wind directions, the film has been changed to "Lily Dafa".
In fact, in the author's opinion, the setting of the two girls is more reasonable. Miba is very much like a mirror image of Robin, representing the missing side of Robin.
In contrast to Robin's restrained state, Miba, who grows in the jungle, appears to be unrestrained. Her body has both the wild vitality of an animal, the simple kindness of an ordinary girl, and the attachment to her mother. What is even more rare is that she is determined and always knows who she is and what she wants to do now and in the future.
Miba is also comfortable with his identity. As a woman, she loves beauty, and the scene in the film where Robin combs Miba's hair and wears flowers rarely shows Miba's quiet and idyllic side, which can be described as a stroke of God; as a daughter, seeing the protector and the people attacking her mother, Miba is not afraid and dares to stand forward; as a wolfwalker, she knows how to lead the wolves, protect the race, do not take the initiative to hurt humans, and even heal humans who are attacked by wolves.
After Miba accidentally bites Robin, Robin also turns into a wolfwalker. At this time, Robin was caught in a huge self-struggle.
On the one hand, due to becoming a wolf, the outward side of Robin's personality was released, learning to perceive the surroundings with her hearing, overcoming fear, leaping over the mountains, jumping on the eaves; on the other hand, more than ten years of life was subverted, Robin needed to adapt, she did not dare to sleep at night, because once asleep, the soul would transform into a wolf and come out of the body.
Surprisingly, after a dialogue with Miba's mother, a brief return to the life of an ordinary girl, a series of events such as being misunderstood by Miba, and facing the persecution of Miba's mother and daughter by the Protector, Luobin finally clarified his inner direction, got rid of the symbolic bandana, and became a truly independent individual.
In this process, the father is the subject of Robin, if the initial desire to engage in the hunter profession is the recognition of the father, then becoming a wolfwalker, daring to rebel against the protector and father who represents authority, is a sign of Robin's awakening of self-consciousness.
In the end, Luobin, in the form of a young girl, saves her father who fights with the Protector with a bow and arrow, which is a symbol of his surpassing father. At this point, the growth of the girl has completed three stages, that is, identifying with the object object and developing self-goals; confronting the object object and forming self-consciousness; and transcending the object object and realizing personality independence.
Tom Moore: Artistic creativity burned by nostalgia
A good story needs to be supported by refinement, and any "Theo" work is no exception. In this session, Tom Moore continues to uphold his craftsmanship. Public information shows that the preparation and production of "Wolf Walker" took five years, which is a typical "slow work", and the presentation effect of the film also confirms this conclusion.
In terms of visual effects, compared with the previous works "The Secret of the Book of Kells" and "Song of the Sea", the hand-drawn style of "Wolf Walker" is a higher level, with both fine quality and diversified creativity.
Taking the character modeling as an example, Luobin's image is clear and elegant, gray pupils, yellow hair, green fir, and the collocation of dark coats belongs to the same color system, which is in line with the attributes of the character "girl in the city"; the image of Miba is bright and atmospheric, with golden pupils, brown freckles, orange red hair color, and green shirts.
Taking the empty mirror vision as an example, the green hills and the gray urban area complement each other, and the lines and compositions of the hills are mainly spiraled, conveying freedom and unrestrained; the lines and compositions of the urban areas are mostly rectangular, representing rules and comfort.
In general, the lines, composition and color of "WolfWalker" are properly matched, the complex and chaotic lines suppress the full color to a certain extent, plus the cutting of the composition, so that the picture looks heavy and light, full of comfort, small details can withstand scrutiny, and the large space has a sense of extension and a far-reaching artistic conception, which can release the imagination of the audience and lead everyone into a colorful two-dimensional world.
It is worth mentioning that in order to further connect ancient legends with modern films, to produce "WolfWalker", Tom Moore referenced many ancient Irish books and prints in order to show the original hometown culture.
In terms of sound effects, the soundtrack of the whole film was personally created by the master Bruno Cules, who was famous in the industry for the soundtrack of "Spring of the Cattle Herding Class"; in this film, he used multiple instruments such as flutes, pianos, black pipes, and harps to express the mood and plot direction of the characters. For example, Robin's curiosity and excitement when she first arrived in the jungle, and the sword fighting in the end.
The theme song of the film is sung by the Norwegian soul song Herora, in an ethereal and delicate style, which is in line with the ballads of "The Secret of the Book of Kells" and "Song of the Sea".
Seen in this way, Wolfwalker is worthy of Tom Moore's "five years of grinding a sword". Whether it is visual effects or sound effects, they have come up with a production attitude of striving for perfection.
From "The Secret of the Book of Kells" and "Song of the Sea" to "Wolf Walker", with his love for his homeland and unique artistic talent, Irish director Tom Moore has created his own brand IP with three animated feature films, revealing a strong personal style label.
Macroscopically speaking, these three works, under the screenwriter's brilliant brushwork, contain imaginative imagination and philosophical story meaning, with beautiful and timeless, romantic and poetic pictures and flexible melodious and shocking music, becoming far-reaching artistic masterpieces.
Obviously, after the experience accumulation of "The Secret of The Book of Kells" and "Song of the Sea", as well as the cooperation with Rose Stewart, to the third work "Wolfwalker", Tom Moore is more enthusiastic about making animated feature films, and the quality and watchability of the film are far beyond the previous works, and can continue to break through at a high level, which makes the industry and outside the impressive.
In addition, from the perspective of "mastering the long skills", Tom Moore's creative trajectory is worth learning from young directors in China: only by expressing the strong emotions rooted in the depths of the heart, while upgrading the tempering techniques, can we continue to make self-breakthroughs and gain professional recognition and play a personal brand. Not only can it gain a foothold in the industry, but it can also pass on the culture of our hometown to all parts of the world.
THE END