M&M: Skellig

Dear reader,

as today's M&M post, I want to introduce you to the movie “Skellig.” The film is based on the book by David Almond with the same title. Although it's a children's book, I enjoyed reading it as an adult a lot, too. It's one of the rare books, which are ageless. Like Harry Potter is read and loved by teenagers as well as adults.

The film (so far) is only available in English. It's got English subtitles, too. The book is available in English and German.

The story is about a boy, Michael (Bill Milner), who moves with his parents Dave (John Simm) and Louise (Kelly Macdonald) from a flat in the city to a rotten house further away and that house so needs renovation at least. Michael feels very alone without his friends. His dad is busy renovating and sees his life dream come true. Michael doesn't understand that at all. The baby is born then and has a heart problem. So the mother is away a lot to the hospital, dad sometimes as well. Michael feels even more alone than he felt already.

But he finds a new friend in the girl next door. Mina (Skye Bennett) is her name. She also knows a lot of things, especially considering she doesn't even go to school. Her mother teaches her at home.

Also there's this strange man (Tim Roth) in the garden shed. He seems to be ill and totally lost all his interest in life. All he wants is to be left alone. Michael and Mina however totally thwart those plans. Michael doesn't feel he gets any attention from his parents or that he's able to help them. But maybe he can help that man.

Michael doesn't only get help from Mina. There's also Grace (Edna Doré), an old lady he meets in the hospital. She's constantly walking up and down the hall to keep Arthur away, Arthur-itis. Michael tells her about his sad friend and Grace hands him some of her cod-liver oil pills. Maybe they can help him, too.

For a long time Michael and Mina don't know who this man in the shed is and it takes a while for him to tell them his name at least: Skellig. Once the two of them try to make it more comfortable for him, so they take the jacket off him. That's when they see he's got wings on his back. During their research for creatures with wings, they come across angels, too, of course. Maybe Skellig is an angel? Are human shoulder-blades the last bits or the starting points for wings of highly developed creatures?

One night the father is so desperate with the house and the situation with the baby in the hospital and everything in general, that he decides to just burn the shed. But Skellig is still in there and it takes all of Michael's effort and persuasion, to get him out at the very last second, without the father noticing. He hides Skellig in the forest near by. In doing all that however, Michael burns his hand. Thanks to Michael's and Mina's cockering, Skellig is soon on his way to get better. Then something strange happens: Skellig heals Michael's hand within only a few minutes completely! So when Michael's little baby sister is getting worse, he asks Skellig for help. Surely he can help with her heart problem, after healing Michael's hand. But Skellig is still grumpy.

Will Michael be able to persuade Skellig in time? That's for you to find out and read or watch or both.

And what kind of creature is Skellig? He tells the children that, “I'm something... like you. Something like a bird.” “Something like an angel?”, asks Michael. “Yeah”, says Skellig. “Something like that.” Tim Roth once said in an interview that for him Skellig is an “atheist angel”, an angel who's had enough of all of that, until he meets Michael.

Until next blog,

sarah