Down the Rabbit Hole with Rabbit Slippers

Continuing on with my so-called dialectic between freedom and structure I bring to you this day Mirrormask! This is not a book, but a movie (see trailer here). The change should throw a little spice in the mix and get your vastly-distracted-weekend-focused minds engaged. I will not spoil the ending, but hopefully encourage you to see it.



The writer of this piece, Neil Gaiman, earned a fair deal of fame for his dark and dystopic graphic novels based around The Sandman character. Mirrormask, while occasionally dark and dystopic -is also a story of hope and adventure. Similar to The Wizard of Oz and Alice in Wonderland in it's fantastical and at times Manichean adventure-voyage undertaken by, and interpreted through, a young girl. Helena, the heroine of this little morality tale, is raised in a circus family longing for "real life" which in her opinion does not include constant juggling and dancing bears. During an evening where Helena's mother is perched on the precipice between life and death Helena drifts off to sleep only to awaken in a dark world of her own devising. How it is of her own devising I will leave to those of you who chose to watch it to discover.

This dark world into which she travels contains viscious-but stupid-sphinxs, flying fish, self returning library books, masked characters, a vicious battle between good and evil and far too many references to mythology, culture, psychology and history to even begin to dissect. The fantasmagorical images were created by Jim Henson Studios (makers of The Labyrinth and The Dark Crystal, both equally strange but good movies). These heavily CGI'd images, while not my usual movie preference, actually served the story quite well and made it beautiful to look at - which is always a bonus for a movie. The artistic style was very similar to the Nick Bantock books of which I am also very fond.

The questing and quasi religious nature of the movie makes it appropriate for those who have enjoyed the LOTR movies, but the darker urban implications should also appeal to those of a more dystopian disposition as well.

Rating: A

Related (visually stunning dystopian movies)
Naked Lunch, Brazil, The Wall, The Labyrinth, The Dark Crystal

(fantastic adventure quests)
LOTR, The Wizard of Oz and , Star Wars (non-Jar-Jar)

(Books)
Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
Good Omens - Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett