Mirror, Mirror

I'm not a Neil Gaiman fan, just an admirer. I've read some of his books but none of the Sandman comics. So I guess I'm not qualified to say, but MirrorMask looked like a Neil Gaiman comic.

It is a story about a young woman, Helena, whose parents have a circus - something of a low-budget Cirque du Soleil, with performers in quaint and grotesque masks. She juggles in the show, but only after fighting with her mother about it - Her mother who collapses during the performance. With her mother close to death and going for an operation the next day, Helena goes to bed.

And wakes up in a dreamland, where everyone but Helena wears a mask. She is mistaken for the daughter of the evil Queen of Night. Her real daughter has escaped to the real world, where she impersonates Helena. Helena spies her through windows to the real world and sees her smoking, fighting with Helena's dad and snogging boys. Worse, she is upsetting the Balance, which will cause the universe to end.

So there is a quest, with curious allies, monstrous enemies, and grand weapons, such as a small paperback accurately called A Really Useful Book. This much is fine, grand in fact if you like fantasy kingdoms and quests. What makes it amazing is the film's look, which is pure comic book - not Superman or Marvel, but a graphic novel in the Sandman series.

It's almost uncanny, how comic-like this film looks. Since the director, David McKean, was an artist for Sandman, this makes sense. But it can't have been easy.

A magical movie.