Irish fantasy cartoon, Italian horse racing and English stand-up comedian

Robert Tanitch reviews the latest DVDS

SONG OF THE SEA (StudioCanal). Tomm Moor’s Irish animation, thoroughly rooted though it is in Irish mythology and allusions, has, in its pictorial images, the feel of a Japanese cartoon.

A father, who lives in a lighthouse, grieves for his dead wife. He has two children, a boy and a mute sick girl who is half human and half seal. There is a granny who is also an owlish witch.

The beautiful art work, subtle and rich, will have a special appeal for sophisticated children and their sophisticated parents or grandparents. Each ravishing frame can stand on its own.

PALIO (Altitide). The bareback racing in Sienna is a game not a race. It has been going on since Medieval times. There is a love/hate relationship with the jockeys who do not get to choose the horses. It’s all done by lottery.

A losing jockey is considered corrupt and liable to be beaten up. But corruption is legitimate. Without corruption there would be no palio. Cunning and bribery are more important than strength.

Cosima Spender’s interesting documentary follows a wily veteran rider and a newcomer and she uses the same footage over and over again for the races which have the excitement of the gladiatorial challenges of the Roman past.

BRAND A SECOND COMING (Metrodome). What is it about Russell Brand? Watch Ondi Timonor’s documentary and see an explosive, exuberant stand-up comedian, a former drug-addict, turn into an explosive, exuberant social commentator and political activist who publishes a book called Revolution.

Comedy is dangerous, subversive. Brand wants to shake up the world, disrupt the ideology. He gets a lot of flack from press and media who think of him as a vulgar, juvenile, offensive, deluded, vacuous celebrity.

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