This review is necessarily short, for words would fail me to express the utter visual sumptuousness of this movie. It is the movie Tim Burton wished he had made (in my words). And I do love Tim. There is a richness of artistic knowledge in this film as well as an acute awareness of the dynamics of the writing of a "modern" faerie tale in the intriguing writing of Neil Gaiman. It is the story of a girl named Helena who was raised in a circus family and who loves to draw quirky characters and environments. When her mother falls ill, she has a dream in which she embarks on a quest to find a "mirrormask"--something she has no idea the appearance or purpose of--but it is nonetheless important. The word itself sounds like a word in dreams--the hybrid words that we hear or say that have tremendous meaning about our identities. I'm sure if you think hard enough, you'll remember that one dream in which a word was uttered, and upon waking, you thought--'what in the world does that mean?' In this case it reveals her waking life's struggle with teen angst and becoming an adult. The world of the dream is derived from her waking life's drawings. She discovers that an evil version of her mother (in the dream) has sought to get her daughter back (an evil one), but that daughter has disguised herself as the Helena in waking life. Her real mother in the dream takes on the archetypal role of the sleeping queen/princess. Helena must look through a window onto the world the evil changeling is in while wearing the mirrormask -- a mask that has a reflective outer surface that merges with the glass and changes the position of the heroine with the "bad daughter"-- who is reflective of Helena's negative behavior toward her mother before she took ill and Helena's subsequent guilt.
While watching the film, J. noted the esoteric quality of the film and wondered what audience it would be made for. So I came up with a list: The people who like this film are people who like(d):
Jim Henson (his company made some of the puppets)
Tim Burton
Neil Gaiman
Salvador Dali
Yves Tanguy
Hans Bellmer
Lovers of modern comics
Alice and Wonderland
The Wizard of Oz
Rembrandt's ink drawings
A Series of Unfortunate Events
Max Ernst
Odilon Redon
Labyrinth
The Dark Crystal
H.R. Giger
I could go on and on....so basically not that esoteric at all.
As a visual artist, of course, the visuals are what appeal most to me. The story is an archetypal faerie tale with a basic plot that has hints of Alice and Dorothy, but has still holds onto its own distinct voice. The visuals are unparalleled in recent years, in my opinion. I highly recommend it for that reason.
© Stephanie Lewis, 2006
No comments:
Post a Comment