MirrorMask
Gorgeous work. I have never before seen a graphic novel on screen. Many wonderful bits, that you will only get from Dave McKean and Neil Gaiman working together on a motion picture.
The screenplay? Was not an allegory.* Which is to say: it had a lot of promise, things that started out well and could have been wonderful and brilliant. But at the base of it, the meaning wasn't there. I -- wish I could have beta'd. Or at least had the opportunity to ask Neil where he put the depth I would like to believe is in there, hidden, somewhere.
*For those of you who were fortunately enough to NOT hear me rant about Labyrinth... Labyrinth is an elaborate allegory, brilliantly (if campily) done. If Labyrinth is not an allegory, it is a fun Muppety adventure quest type thing. I love it either way, but I can only think about it if it's an allegory.
I was in tears within the first five minutes. When it split to the fantastical, I was jointly (a) appropriately disoriented and (b) relieved, in a cowardly way, that they were starting to distance from the emotions.
It was, ultimately, a world that existed independently of Helena's head. She went into an alternate universe, where people happened to look similarly to her, her mother and her father. They were not, as far as I can tell, her personal mental images of her mother or her father. Which is a shame, because there is so much you can do, psychologically, with the image of the mother split into Dark and Light. And the way they split the mother's personality was very well done: the Light Queen was warm and comforting, and listened to Helena. The Dark Queen was not evil or cold, at first: just disappointed, needing Helena to be a certain way (in the context of the movie, it was not an unreasonable request, either) and generally caught in the sort of push-pull "Why don't you act the way I want you to?" scenarios that happen between every parent and child.*
*The Dark mother later became unambiguously evil and cold, which was disappointing.
But it has allegorical elements, and it was potentially allegorical for much of the movie. The moment where it failed as an allegory for me was at the end, when the Dark Queen face appeared in the sky. Helena said, "Stop trying to possess me!" The Dark Queen said, "What, you mean, let you live your own life? Absolutely out of the question." This was late enough in the story that it was basically the last moment, and therefore the appropriate moment, to resolve the two contradictory images of the mother. They could have had the Dark Queen respond in a way that would have made it clear to all and sundry that the Dark Queen was not particularly trying to possess Helena; but that Helena was, rather, having difficulties with her personal idiosyncratic version of separation and individuation.* That Helena did, in fact, have something to learn, other than the factual location and intended use of the MirrorMask. But instead of resolving the conflict with the mother -- rather than resolving the conflict from the Real World, the conflict with which they started the movie -- they maintained and solidified the split images of the mother. They flattened the Dark Queen's character, made her comfortably and incomprehensibly evil, and reduced Helena's quest to the purely exterior one of Stopping Anti-Helena.** And I couldn't regain any sense of depth after that.
*What? Theories of psychology are the ones I've learned most recently. Of course it's going to pop up constantly.
**In case you didn't stay to watch the credits, yes, that is what they call her. Anti-Helena. She's a Shadow figure, dammit! *sulks*
Anyway, if you disagree with me or catch something I'm missing, please comment, I'd love to be proved blind.
I enjoyed it, despite my disappointment with the follow-through. I mean, you still enjoyed Miyasaki's Howl's Moving Castle, right? I would absolutely recommend it: there's the whole gorgeousness aspect to it, some very nice set-up, there's the fun bits they stick in and the many great throw-away lines. Many, many wonderful bits that the ending couldn't ruin. And I rather liked the fact that the male romantic lead had a tendency towards being selfish jerk the ENTIRE time, rather than randomly morphing into a Wonderful Selfless Hero by the end.
ETA: Hmmm. As I have typed and edited myself, it has occurred to me that Neil could have wanted both: that the fantasy world exist independently of Helena's head, that the fantasy world contain certain mental archetypes from her head/life, and that each layer of meaning affect the other. In fact, if I am recalling correctly from what he said about MirrorMask at his reading, he was getting at the interconnectedness of life: how each world affected the other, how the world can fall apart when the proper balance is missing. However, it still feels unsatisfying. It still feels like he brought up a conflict, described it beautifully, and never properly resolved it. On a literary level, I feel like the allegorical level and the alternate/separate universe level are enmeshed; rather than each level being carefully developed with internal consistency, existing as parallel layers of meaning, and interacting in a meaningful way. On a narrative level, Helena's mother is going to get out of the hospital, and within six months, Helena will recommence fighting with her about the circus. Though it is true that Helena will probably never again use the words, "I wish I were the death of you."