Features

MirrorMask
Now on DVD

File this one under: ‘Wish I’d Seen It on the
Big Screen.’

Fortunately, it’s on DVD now, and with the lights
turned down and a bag of microwave popcorn,
the experience can be mimicked to a reasonable
degree. MirrorMask, the collaborative screen
adventure by Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean, brings
a beautifully layered cinema-graphic masterpiece
to life, giving the audience something unlike
anything it has experienced before.

Gaiman’s stories often borrow themes from stage
and carnival backgrounds, but he twists and
contorts them into something new and delightfully
warped. He does so in MirrorMask: a fifteen-year-old
girl, Helena (played by Stephanie Leonidas), dreams
of running away from the circus to join a normal life. But Helena’s Real Life in the capital
sense collides with the Dream when her mother falls suddenly ill, derailing her
parents’ circus act and the lives of the players around them. On the night of her mother’s
operation, Helena goes to bed, riddled with guilt over an argument they had just before the
onset of the illness. That’s when the true fun begins.

Helena finds herself in the Mirror World, a half-dreamy, half-nightmarish and hauntingly
familiar place in which everyone wears masks, except Helena. The Mirror World is a realm of
dichotomy, where the White Queen sleeps and will not wake, and the Dark Queen destroys
everything in her reckless search for her errant daughter. Gaiman and McKean, who have
paired up to bring us The Sandman graphic novels, and whom I’m certain must be soul-bound
symbiots, excel in striking that familiar yet disturbing chord of a collective conscious. They
draw on what we already know about symbolism and archetypes, giving audiences a
menagerie of creepy creatures, such as a sphinx who resembles a housecat, but threatens
to devour Helena ‘bones and all’ if she doesn’t provide him with the answer to his riddle. In
another instance, Helena and Valentine are surrounded by a pack of hungry sphinxes that
can only be appeased by a literal literary feast: they consume the pages of books. And yes,
they have a mime.

Also trademark to Gaiman is his subtle turns of wit and double entendres. For example,
Helena and her pseudo-boyfriend-hero-type Valentine surf through the city streets on
dejected books that return immediately to the city library when they think they aren’t
wanted. The dialog is at times nonsensical and Pythonesque. For instance, the city guard,
upon arresting Helena, proclaims: “Dangerous. Not dangerous. Same thing.” Another
example: Helena says, “If I tell you something weird, will you think I’m crazy?” To which
Valentine responds, “Yes. I expect so.”

Gaiman is a master at denying the normal mode of storytelling. He nests stories within
stories. He employs extraneous characters and objects to take up strands of narrative and
provide the back story. In a way, MirrorMask is like stepping into the pages of a Sandman
story. It’s a fully realized graphic novel on film. The elongated, stylized set designs and
characters cobbled from ordinary objects (toasters, books, pieces of glass and bone) are the
inhabitants of the Dreaming brought to life by McKean’s dark artistic vision.

Of particular note are Stephanie Leonidas as Helena and Jason Barry as Valentine. Leonidas
is warmly vulnerable and at-home in Helena’s mad world of scribblings and lucid dreams. She
could easily pull off playing Death in another Gaiman movie, should a production company
pull together the resources to fund it (hint, hint Universal Studios). Jason Barry plays the
dynamic Valentine with frenetic yet sidewise charm.

Although MirrorMask probably made for an unparalleled cinematic experience, there are
upsides to the DVD. The first is that you can immediately re-watch it. This is the kind of
movie that gives something new every time you watch it. The second is all of the goodies,
like interviews with Dave McKean and Neil Gaiman, regarding the magic they pooled to make
the movie. With Jim Henson’s name attached to the production credits, MirrorMask has been
compared to The Labyrinth and The Dark Crystal. MirrorMask definitely finds a home
alongside these classics.

The Lake House
Soon to be on DVD

If I must rate it… because people sorta like that, I would give it a 2.5
on a scale of one to four. Two and half stars, because it’s better than
the average mindless tear-jerking romance we all know, love and reach
for along with a carton of coffee flavored Haagen-Dasz when our
latest fling has flung.

The Lake House is a mystical realism romance in which Kate (Bullock)
and Alex (Reeves) carry on an affair through letters, even though he
is two years in the past. Therefore, it’s a love story that involves time
travel. Sounds hokey. Sounds corny. But it works.

And here’s why.

Kate is a Chicago doctor who has rented an impractically beautiful
lakeside house made of glass. As she’s moving out, she places a note
in the mailbox for the next tenant (Reeves) requesting that he forward
her mail. Alex responds by telling her that he is sure she’s made a
mistake. The lake house he’s moving into has been empty for years.

Kate and Alex continue to correspond, both laboring at first that the
other is either crazy or seriously mistaken. They get past it, though.
There’s this brief expository exchange in which he writes, “Is this really
happening?”

He places the note in the mailbox, raises the flag. The flag goes down on its own and returns,
with her written response inside: “Why not?”

With those glaringly simple lines, the mystical aspect of the film is established. And… we’re off!

Now, because it’s that kind of movie, audiences immediately expect the crushing disappointment
of continually missed opportunities and that is certainly present. As Kate and Alex write back and
forth across time, it is established that both have a habit of cutting themselves off from reality (ya
think?), whether it is full-immersion workaholism or by pushing away the most likely relationship
candidates in their lives. This is helped along by references to Jane Austen’s Persuasion and
moody, perpetual autumn lighting.

There’s undeniable on-screen chemistry between Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves. Is there
really a need to talk about Speed here? They were darlin’ in that, and it’s my private hope that
they are real life friends who occasionally meet for hot dogs at Johnny Rockets when their busy
lives allow it.

The main characters are deeply likable. The supporting characters – Alex’s father (Plummer), who
built the Lake House, and Kate’s supervisor (Aghdashloo) – add bite and spine to the movie and to
Alex and Kate, respectively.

So, while The English Patient it’s not, The Lake House is an enjoyable movie theater meringue. It’s
sugary, fluffy and goes down well. It’s still in theaters, but just barely. This one’s definitely worth
checking out on DVD.