Rating: NR | Runtime: 13 minutes
Studio: Cartoon Saloon / GKIDS
Director(s): Giovanna Ferrari
Writer(s): Giovanna Ferrari

No foe would dare to utter my name!

Éiru (Coco Teehan Roche) is ready to follow in the footsteps of her Flame Clan Chieftain (Michael McGrath) and the other warriors who fight to protect their people from the tribes of both Tree and Stone. There’s just one problem: she’s still a child. So, rather than be trained, Éiru is ridiculed. Yes, it’s true that she is two times smaller than the men, but the way they mock her starts to feel personal. You must wonder if they’ll let her fight even if she does grow to their size.

Written and directed by Giovanna Ferrari and set in Ireland’s Iron Age where goddesses like Brigid still reign, Éiru reveals a battle only its titular hero can hope to win. The Chieftain operates on blunt force trauma, but that penchant for violence won’t shrink his men small enough to descend their mysteriously dried up well. Éiru is their sole member who can both fit and has the tenacity to believe she can conquer whichever of their enemies dared steal their water.

This juxtaposition of brawn versus brains recalls How to Train Your Dragon as far as unlikely heroes and the faulty logic of fear-and hate-fueled indoctrination. Because who are the Tree and Stone Clans? Do they truly deserve nothing but death? Or are they perhaps just like Éiru and her brethren: humans trying to survive? The disappeared water is also obviously a case of Mother Nature’s self-preservation too. Why give mankind life if they just use it for destruction?

With an animation style wearing its Cartoon Saloon label with pride as far as its Celtic motifs and simultaneous overhead/profile set-pieces, I really enjoyed the rougher, unpolished finish Ferrari lends to the characters, locales, and motion. A product of budget and time, it also lends a welcome energy to match its lead’s strong emotions both in her drive to vanquish foes and her inevitable realization that her idols are no better than the villains she’s been told to abhor.

I loved the expressionistic art and design of the underworld with swirls of white creating caverns and sharp, jagged thunderbolts of stress and punishment from the acts of men rendering the earth red and angry. Brigid’s one chance to find peace is to manufacture a problem only childhood innocence can solve away from deep-seated tradition and dogma. It leads to a wonderfully optimistic end that reminds us to open our blind eyes and see the truth: we are all the same.

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A scene from ÉIRU; courtesy of Cartoon Saloon.