Dave McKean
MirrorMask

A prominent figure of the so-called "(second) British invasion" which, in the second half of the '80s, helped to infuse new energy, depth, and maturity into American comics, Neil Gaiman, now an intriguing novelist (in my opinion, with mixed success), was mainly the architect of the planetary and well-deserved success of Sandman: an epic comic-poem with strong horror-dark tones, centered on the adventures of the Lord of Dreams, a tormented and romantic member of the Endless family (depicted, for the record, as a tall and emaciated Robert Smith, but with better taste in clothing).

An eclectic and visionary artist, a great experimenter of graphic techniques, and a fine illustrator (also for renowned album covers, the most famous of which is perhaps "Scenes From A Memory - etc etc" by Dream Theater), Dave McKean has helped shape and give charm to the creations of Gaiman's mind, dressing them in refined faces and clothes, offering readers pages full of poetic visionariness and elegant visual madness. An author perhaps less universally appreciated but certainly respected.

It was obvious that the announcement of a film written by the former and directed by the latter would generate an ecstatic anticipation among all those who, like myself, haven't missed a release from the duo in years. "MirrorMask" makes its appearance in the theaters of the Western world (but obviously not in the Italian ones..) in 2005 and, in many ways, serves as a good reason to avoid setting foot in a movie theater. The opening, to be very honest, is quite intriguing: the circus setting seems like it should offer the two authors endless inspirations and opportunities to unleash their creativity. The animated and three-dimensional opening titles that merge with live-action scenes only serve to fuel hopes and expectations in the unsuspecting viewer. Very soon, however, the entire work begins to reveal its weaknesses. And it is with true regret that, gradually, one realizes that the main faults must be attributed precisely to Gaiman.

The plot of the film deviates little from what one might find in an essay by a particularly brilliant fifth-grader: Helena (the classic teenager with the dark look that Gaiman loves so much) reluctantly works in her family circus, but her true passion is drawing. Just as her mother is hospitalized and in danger, she finds herself catapulted into Darkland (..sic..), a parallel world to the real one, inhabited by more or less unstable characters, as if they've just stepped out of a big dish of braised beef with hallucinogenic mushrooms, all wearing masks that cover their faces. Soon, our heroine realizes that she ended up in a world that she herself created with her drawings, that the existence of her creation depends on the perfect balance between good and evil, light and darkness, and that this balance is now broken because the White Queen has fallen asleep and the Black Queen is taking over. The only way to return home, save the parallel and real world, heal her mother, awaken the good queen, and find a boyfriend is to recover a mysterious magical object, the Mirror Mask, lost who knows where and by who knows whom, somewhere in the lands of Darkland. I hope I've conveyed how bland and predictable it all ends up seeming.

Gaiman, in essence, simply retrieves and reshuffles the vast majority of overused clichés (metaphors, settings, characters, events) of the fantasy genre. He does this, it must be said, with the style that made him great, so much so that his touch, his inventiveness, on some occasions, seem determined to make their way through a sea of "telegraphed" solutions on which the film soon settles. Some characters are, in my opinion, truly successful (the amusing "fearsome" Sphinx-guardian who can't solve riddles is a genius, as are the Books who, if treated badly and accused of being boring, return mournfully to the library and can be used as a means of transport). But what is truly lacking is the overall picture, the screenplay as a whole: too many stereotypes leave the viewer completely indifferent (the pathetic confrontation between the White Queen and the Black Queen, perhaps Gaiman's lowest creative point since his days as an erotic film screenwriter), too many situations end up arousing only perplexity, some devices are embarrassing (..but the arrival of the Tower at the end tops them all..) used to escape the frequent quagmires of a screenplay (moreover "thrown together" in just over three days..) that, in the end, seems more than anything a pretext for yet another parade of Gaiman-esque characters. That is if one is willing to turn a blind eye to the scantiness of the fable's "moral" of staying true to oneself in a world where everyone wears masks and "there's no place like home".

The technical aspect is no better. Perhaps due to a not exactly lavish budget provided by the Jim Henson Company, the inevitable recourse to computer graphics for the depiction of the "beyond" world not only fails to compare with more recent and prestigious products (read: the various Pixar, Disney productions, etc..), but suggests too distinctly a sensation of "superimposition" and "technological photomontage", especially concerning backgrounds, set designs, and buildings. With a debatable but certainly bold choice, a decidedly "loaded" color palette was employed, as if someone had sat on the contrast button of the remote control: if in some passages this confers a wonderfully "alienating" effect, a visual trip, with continuous clashes of blacks and phosphorescent oranges, bright yellows and purples (obviously opposed to the almost "surgical" chromatic sobriety of the real world), in the long run, it all becomes tiresome and turns quite cloying. Even McKean's inexperience as a director is, alas, noticeable and results in a continuous alternation of directorial banalities and clumsy attempts at self-indulgent virtuosity, questionable timing choices, and, above all, the tendency to overload the frame with things, colors, characters always and in any case.

The final result is a sort of "Spirited Away" in an ultra psycho-dark version, filled with often haphazard computer graphics, and with a rather trivial plot, in which dozens of characters, monsters, animals or presumed such, creatures, living objects and "things" (the peak is reached, in my opinion, with the two huge floating rock Siamese brothers..) seem to jostle for their five seconds of fame, without realizing that by doing so, no one, not even the protagonist of this Alice in horror-lysergic wonderland, will truly impact the viewer.

Far too little, then, considering the potential of the project and its authors, the expectations generated in the audience, and their hopes of seeing two excellent creatives tackle the cinematic register. An enormous missed opportunity.