Neil Gaiman is one of the most talented writers working in science fiction, fantasy and comics today (and he works in all three, as well as kids-lit and other fields).
His latest project is an extraordinary film called Mirrormask, lavishly illustrated by towering graphic genius Dave McKean (who did the cover for my most recent book), and brought to life by the Jim Henson Creature Shop (Neil’s other cinematic endeavors include the English script for Princess Monanoke — how freaking cool is that?).
Mirrormask, a twisted, pure-Gaiman fairy tale, opens this Friday, and the opening weekend will determine whether the film sticks around to get the audience it deserves. I know I’ll be making time to see it.
MirrorMask is a wonderfully demented fairy tale filled with fanged cats out of Escher sketches and prickly spiral staircases to nowhere, but at its core is simply a girl wishing her sick mother would get better. This is the genius of Dave McKean and Neil Gaiman: to create twisted, gorgeous worlds, breathtaking in their elaborate detail, yet never lose the ability to tell a compelling story.
In the opening credits, strips of paper come alive to form a circus. Spangled performers wander among the tents. Sock puppets discuss an evil queen. It is a thoroughly surreal scene, a circus by Salvador Dali come to life, until the very ordinary-looking woman at the ticket booth asks a mute clown to take over for her while she searches for someone who turns out to be her teenaged daughter. Helena (Stephanie Leonidas), the owner of the feet animating the sock puppets, has a very typical teenage argument with her mother and threatens, rather untypically, to run away from the circus.
What follows is a lovely journey through a fantastical landscape. Helena’s mother falls sick, and Helena herself, wishing to join the real world, finds herself instead in the Dark Lands, a twisted world where fish fly in schools through the air, insulted books return to the library of their own volition, and everyone wears a mask. It is a quirkily charming place, and there are flashes of Monty Pythonesque humor in Helena’s encounter with the Prime Minister (Rob Brydon, who also plays Helena’s father). Yet it is also dangerous, as Helena is threatened by savage sphinxes and a creeping dark rot which turns out to be the result of the slow death of the Queen of Light (Gina McKee, who also plays Helena’s mother). In this world of masks, it is Helena, with Leonidas’ wonderfully expressive, mobile face, who is seen as strange and powerful, and the Prime Minister begs Helena to find the MirrorMask, an item of great power that will both restore the queen to health and allow Helena to return home.
(Thanks, Neil!)