~ by Rebecca Fisher

Despite being released over twenty years later, Mirrormask is best described as a spiritual successor to the likes of Labyrinth and The Dark Crystal. All three have been released by the Jim Henson Company, and each one deals with rebellious adolescence, strange worlds, and the fraught relationship between darkness and light.

With a screenplay by Neil Gaiman, which naturally includes plenty of his favourite topics (including a strained relationship between mother and daughter that is similarly featured in Coraline), and direction by Dave McKean (who fills the film with his distinct visual flair) Mirrormask is replete with striking imagery and storytelling resonance.

Unlike its aforementioned predecessors, Mirrormask does not utilize puppetry to bring its dream-worlds to life, but rather extensive use of CGI. Because it’s so immersive, with everything from backgrounds to supporting characters rendered by computer effects, the entire film has a surreal quality that makes you feel you’re watching a painting come to life.

Helena and Valentine

Most kids want to run away and join the circus, but Helena Campbell wants to run away and join real life. After her exasperated mother says: “you’ll be the death of me,” she makes an unpleasant wish: “I wish I was.”  That’s the universe’s cue to ensure that her mother collapses in the middle of the circus act and is rushed away to hospital.

With her mother’s operation looming, Helena is woken from her sleep one night by the sound of violin music. Following it outside, she finds herself in a world that looks exactly like the artwork that covers the walls of her bedroom, and after a frightening encounter with shadows that swallow everything in sight, she teams up with an Irish juggler called Valentine (who, like everyone else in this world, wears a permanent mask to hide his face).

Much like The Wizard of Oz, which moved from sepia tones to bright Technicolour, Mirrormask goes from a grey drab palette to saturated acidic tones as Helena moves from one world to the other. The city she explores is filled with book-eating sphinxes, spiders with eyeball bodies, helpful monkey-birds, and orbiting giants floating in the ether. Helena soon learns that the city’s ruler – the White Queen – has fallen into a coma, and the only way to wake her is to find the stolen Mirrormask.

The White Queen sleeps

It doesn’t take a genius to release that the fate of the White Queen is connected to that of Helena’s mother, especially when Helena realizes that by looking through any window in the city she can glimpse her own bedroom – where a mysterious doppelganger has taken her place.

With themes of duality, identity and motherhood, plenty of potent symbolism (keys, mirrors, masks, fruit) and allusions to everything from Alice in Wonderland to The Neverending Story, this film is best appreciated by those who already have a long-standing love of archetypes and fairytale tropes. There’s lots of clever wordplay and creative eye-candy, and even room for a quirky little love story as Helena and Valentine bond over their shared ability to juggle.

Orbiting giants give Helena important information

It’s definitely an acquired taste, and a bit slow to start, but for anyone who wants to try something unique then Mirrormask is a film that marches to the beat of a different drum. In fact, it marches to the sound of tinny circus music that perfectly captures its offbeat, imaginative tone.

Next Time: Attack the Block

Aliens invade a London council estate in Attack the Block, and it’s up to a band of street kids to stop them. With a low budget but a great script, this sci-fi thriller has all the makings of a cult classic – if only more people knew about it!

About The Reviewer:

Rebecca Fisher is a graduate of the University of Canterbury with a Masters degree in English Literature, mainly, she claims, because she was able to get away with writing her thesis on C.S. Lewis and Philip Pullman. She is a reviewer for FantasyLiterature.com, a large website that specializes in fantasy and science-fiction novels, as well as posting reviews to Amazon.com and her They’re All Fictional blog.

To read Rebecca’s detailed introduction of both herself and the series, as well as preceding reviews, click on:

Big Worlds On Small Screens
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