Song of the Sea is based on Irish folklore. Ben is an ordinary little boy, when he was very young, his mother Bronach gave birth to his sister Saoirse. Because Bronach's true identity is a seal fairy, and her destiny is to sing constantly as a sea elf, so that the sea elf can reach their other side, so after she gave birth to her daughter, she left her husband and children and returned to the sea. Her husband, mourning the loss of his wife all day, was worried that his daughter would leave him like his wife, so he threw away Saoirse's coat and let his grandmother take the two children to the city. Ben has always been very resistant to his sister because of his mother's departure, and it was not until he found out that her sister was also a seal fairy. An accidental encounter with the elves made Ben understand that his sister was on a mission to save the elves who had been sucked out of emotions and turned into stones, so they embarked on a journey to return to their hometown and find the seal coats. Later, the younger sister finally rescued the elves with a beautiful singing voice, and the family was reunited.
The first time I saw this film, I was deeply impressed by its style of painting. The random curves and sharp lines depicting the mountains filled the screen. The overall colors tended to the dark blue of the ocean and the dark green of the forest, a little retro and mysterious. Then the background music sounded, which immediately brought out the vast and desolate coast of northern Europe.
The film also involves an old Scottish myth: the Owl Witch Macha's son, because he kept crying, his tears turned into a monstrous sea of water, and it was about to create a disaster. His mother used witchcraft to suck out his son's negativity and locked it in a glass bottle, but at the same time his son turned into a boulder, standing by the sea. Since then, Macha has been constantly sucking the emotions of the elves, and her residence is filled with glass bottles containing various emotions. The elves have turned into stone statues one after another, and they seem to have no worries and troubles, but they have also become emotionless beings. Macha thought that she had saved everyone, but she didn't know that "not to be happy with things and not to be sad" left everyone's lives with only comfortable numbness. This reminds me of real life, if a person has only happiness without comparison with sadness, anger, etc., then he will not realize the true value of happiness and cannot cherish this happiness. If there is only one emotion in a person's life, he also loses the rich inner experience and can only live in a rigid plane, not three-dimensional and vivid. SHE once sang: happy to love, happy to pain, happy to be sad, happy to be moved. I will enjoy what life gives me, and don't miss every spark of fireworks in the world. It is exactly this meaning.
There is another theme that the film presents, that is parting. At the end of the film, Ben takes his sister away from his grandmother's house, exploring along the way, constantly gaining something; Bronach finally leaves behind a daughter, saying goodbye to her husband and children, and returning to the ocean. Long Yingtai wrote about the separation of parents and children: I slowly and slowly learned that the so-called father-daughter mother-child relationship only means that the fate between you and him is that you are constantly watching his back in this life. Go further away. You stand at this end of the path, watching him gradually disappear at the turn of the path, and he silently tells you with his back: Don't chase. In life, we are constantly faced with various forms of separation, separation from parents, relatives and friends, separation from loved ones, and farewell to the world. These separations make us focus more on the present, let us see the meaning clearly, and let us quickly growing up.
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