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Neverending Hike Through Simon's Dark Crystalized Wonderland
Plot: The evening before her mother's surgery, Helena dreams of an odd city inhabited by a myriad of absurd and eccentric creatures based on the ink and pen drawings that line her walls. The city's White Queen (Gina McKee) has fallen ill and unless Helena can find the MirrorMask and use it to awaken the White Queen, not only will the city be consumed by darkness, but Helena may not be able to return to the real world. Review: Built on a foundation of religious allegory, fables, fairytales, myths and legends the characters and storylines that dominate fantasy are intricately woven into our collective and historical consciousness. And even when there are no tangible connections, historically or geographically between cultures, variants of these stories appear in traditions around the world time and time again. Versions of Cinderella have appeared in Korea, Russia, Vietnam and West Africa. Nearly every post-Star Wars geek knows that, via Joseph Campbell and his Hero with a Thousand Faces, Lucas found inspiration for Luke's story in the myriad of hero myths that have existed as long as man has been telling stories. Increasing the difficulty for McKean and Gaiman are the number of iconic fantasy films that are a part of our film language. So when a story is as underdeveloped as MirrorMask's is, imaginative creatures like McKean and Gaiman's sphinx instantly bring Alice in Wonderland's Cheshire cat to mind. When the Dark Queen's mannequin-like servants dress Helena, one thinks of the singing and dancing mice from Cinderella's ball gown sequence. There's even a touch of Japanese animation powerhouse Hayao Miyazaki (Princess Mononoke, Howl's Moving Castle) in not only the story's flow, but also in the design of the both the creatures and the world they inhabit. (The Miyazaki influence probably isn't a coincidence considering Gaiman scripted the English translation of Princess Mononoke.) These allusions wouldn't be such a distraction if MirrorMask had some concrete whys and what-fors. Gaiman's screenplay offers us several, but neither he nor McKean's direction ever settles on any of them. Is Helena's quest to save her mother, or is it to have her mother accept her as she is? What exactly is the point of Helena's doppelganger? Was she real or was she, as a product of Helena's guilt, Helena's immaturity personified? Why is Helena's relationship with her mother so much more acrimonious than with her father? And of course there's the big question that remains unanswered. Was Helena's journey real or imagined? The impression is that either both McKean and Gaiman, knowing how familiar Helena's quest would be to most audiences, made a conscious decision to rely on the production design to gloss over the gaps — which is unlikely. Or, in trying to cover so much territory in a two hour movie, were simply overambitious. (Allegedly, McKean and Gaiman outlined the story over a three day period and it was during filming that they filled in the details.) One of the strengths of a novel is that not only can it raise a thousand questions, there's enough space to give a thousand contradictory answers and still leave an audience satisfied. And watching MirrorMask I couldn't help feel that as a novel the story would have had been more than just the sum of its parts. But, no matter how inspired the imagery of MirrorMask is, as a film, it's a hurdle that McKean and Gaiman just can't overcome. Charles Judson is a local screen and comic book writer and regular reviewer for cinemATL. |
MirrorMask
Directed by: Dave McKean 
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