Once upon a time there was a writer called Neil Gaiman, and he decided to team up with Dave McKean (or vice versa) to do a movie, a movie that would eventually turn out to be MirrorMask. It wasn’t long ago when i’ve seen it in television, and i really liked it then, even though i could only see the last third of it. This time it was the whole, and as i guessed correctly last time, it became my favourite movie.

To put it short, it’s about a girl, whose parents run a circus. For most teens, the ultimate dream is to run away from the “real world” and join a circus–in Helena’s case it’s the exact opposite: she wants to run away from the circus, and finally see real life. She’s really artistic too, taking part in the shows juggling, and the back wall of her room is covered with drawings too, drawings of a dream world. The major twist comes, when her mother is hospitalized with some very dangerous illness, the balance is broken by the Princess of Shadows, and she takes over Helena’s life as she falls asleep. Now come the ultimate quest: find the Mirror Mask, the Charm, that can wake the sleeping Queen of Light and take Helena back to her own world (though the dream-world is no less hers). It may seem a bit childish told this way, but actually it’s so surreal, so bizarre, that it would be hard to bear and understand by a kid–and to match up with the look of the land of light and shadow, the music’s great too. (Summary.) MirrorMask is hard to categorize: it could be an adventure movie, a drama, a fantasy film or a disguised ethics lesson, but what matters: it’s very good (once again, this phrase is way too shallow to express it all).

Oh and here come my favourite quote from the movie (guess why):

– What did you say your name was?
– Helena.
– Helena. Helen. Helen-nun-nuh… it’s a bit drab, isn’t it? You know, you should think about changing that. Go for something with a bit of dignity and style, mixed with a bit of romance. Something like… ‘Valentine’.
– Why? What’s your name?
– Valentine.

MirrorMask