MirrorMask secures UK release
Oct. 13th, 2005 02:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
craigoxbrowAccording to the Skinny, which is apparently like The List but free.
After a year without a distributor, an exciting new British film is finally getting a release
Recently the epic fantasy film has seen a bit of a resurgence in the wake of some high profile adaptations. Likewise, comic book adaptations are also coming fast, with more and more staying true to the original art. It may not strictly be a comic adaptation, but the team behind the Sandman series have just collaborated on their first fantastical feature film. MirrorMask, written by Neil Gaiman and directed by Dave McKean, subverts the standard conventions of the genre. It tells the story of Helena, a young girl who longs to run away from the circus to live a normal life, but in doing so falls into an alternative world, possibly metaphorical, possibly real.
Already renowned for his mythologically rich stories such as Coraline, Neverwhere and American Gods, Gaiman's script will not disappoint his fans. McKean, normally known as a visual artist, brings the story to life with absolute clarity: "It was a pleasure to be able to bring my pictures literally to life," he says. "It was a huge steep learning curve and obviously very different to my usual way of working, which is on my own in my studio." As Helena (played by Stephanie Leonidas) realises that she will have to play a larger part then she might have wanted to in this realm, populated by fantastical creatures and alien metaphysics, she is drawn into a quest to find a charm that will be capable of waking the sleeping Queen of Light. "I like this strange balance between real people and real situations and real human concerns, and then visualising a world of characters that are not real, not realistic," McKean says. "They represent states of mind and are not literal organic creatures." He goes on: "If you didn't feel anything for Helena then there'd be no point. Stephanie did a wonderful job. I don't think anybody would have given a damn about the film if there wasn't anything invested in Helena's feelings, so it was important that she wasn't animated."
Influenced by the Eastern European surrealists as much as English artists such as Francis Bacon, McKean's art is wonderfully complimentary to Gaiman's stories, mixing elements of the fantastical with the realistic. McKean says: "Anything that isn't happening now in the present tense I tend to think of in some sort of fantasy world. It becomes a memory, an interpretation of events. At that point, it's not real anymore, it's fiction. We're surrounded with this big bubble of fiction, of stuff that is not actually real." He says that he doesn't think of himself as a jobbing director yet, that there is still so much for him to learn about the medium. "I don't really think I'm on the career curve as a director," he says. "I just do my work and some of it's focused on paintings and some of it's involved with film."
After a year without a distributor, an exciting new British film is finally getting a release
Recently the epic fantasy film has seen a bit of a resurgence in the wake of some high profile adaptations. Likewise, comic book adaptations are also coming fast, with more and more staying true to the original art. It may not strictly be a comic adaptation, but the team behind the Sandman series have just collaborated on their first fantastical feature film. MirrorMask, written by Neil Gaiman and directed by Dave McKean, subverts the standard conventions of the genre. It tells the story of Helena, a young girl who longs to run away from the circus to live a normal life, but in doing so falls into an alternative world, possibly metaphorical, possibly real.
Already renowned for his mythologically rich stories such as Coraline, Neverwhere and American Gods, Gaiman's script will not disappoint his fans. McKean, normally known as a visual artist, brings the story to life with absolute clarity: "It was a pleasure to be able to bring my pictures literally to life," he says. "It was a huge steep learning curve and obviously very different to my usual way of working, which is on my own in my studio." As Helena (played by Stephanie Leonidas) realises that she will have to play a larger part then she might have wanted to in this realm, populated by fantastical creatures and alien metaphysics, she is drawn into a quest to find a charm that will be capable of waking the sleeping Queen of Light. "I like this strange balance between real people and real situations and real human concerns, and then visualising a world of characters that are not real, not realistic," McKean says. "They represent states of mind and are not literal organic creatures." He goes on: "If you didn't feel anything for Helena then there'd be no point. Stephanie did a wonderful job. I don't think anybody would have given a damn about the film if there wasn't anything invested in Helena's feelings, so it was important that she wasn't animated."
Influenced by the Eastern European surrealists as much as English artists such as Francis Bacon, McKean's art is wonderfully complimentary to Gaiman's stories, mixing elements of the fantastical with the realistic. McKean says: "Anything that isn't happening now in the present tense I tend to think of in some sort of fantasy world. It becomes a memory, an interpretation of events. At that point, it's not real anymore, it's fiction. We're surrounded with this big bubble of fiction, of stuff that is not actually real." He says that he doesn't think of himself as a jobbing director yet, that there is still so much for him to learn about the medium. "I don't really think I'm on the career curve as a director," he says. "I just do my work and some of it's focused on paintings and some of it's involved with film."
