The Cinema Shows

In addition to tasting some fine beers as of late, I've also been to the cinema to see the latest Harry Potter flick and Mirror Mask. While both films are fantasies with teenage protagonists, that's about all they have in common. First, let me begin with Potter.

Goblet of Fire was a really fun movie and I enjoyed it immensely. This time around, we are not shown the horrors Harry experiences living with his aunt & uncle and there's no Quidditch match. In their steads the audience gets the Tri-Wizard Tournament and boys & girls "discovering" each other. The TWT provides plenty of scary moments and great action while the flowering sexuality of the kids makes for some humorous moments such as when Harry dribbles water out of his mouth while making eye contact with a hottie across the room.

Harry, Ron, and Hermione are all around 15 in the film and there's plenty of teenage awkwardness to be found - giggling and gawking at the opposite sex, finding a date, etc. I felt so glad sitting there in my chair that I wasn't in high school anymore. The lurch towards adulthood in Prisoner of Azkaban is now a run. This was punctuated at the end of the film with the death of one of the kids. It was an emotionally wrenching scene with the boy's father hovering over the motionless body crying from the depth of his soul. It brought tears to my eyes. Just as the students begin noticing each other in new ways, the role of adults in the story changed too. Hagrid has gone from mentor to light comic relief in a much-reduced role. The kids are becoming more self-reliant and look to each other more often and less to the adults. While the books can go on forever, the film has a limited amount of time to get everything across so the paucity of screentime devoted to certain characters is understandable. Even though I wish Hagrid and Prof. Snape got more time onscreen, the story was still immensely enjoyable.

I appreciate stories aimed at kids that know that people don't just suddenly become adults when they turn 18 and somehow are magically endowed with adult powers and understanding. While 15 year-olds see and understand the world differently and more naively than adults, they don't need to be coddled. Kids are naturally curious and want to know about the world and stories should be a part of this process. Such stories should give glimpes of all aspects of life, both positive and negative. While I'm not suggesting that all stories are equally appropriate for adults and kids, stories aimed at young folk shouldn't pure give the illusion that life is a bowl of cherries. Innocence is lost at birth and every stumble towards adulthood should rightly be filled with knowledge of what's to come.

I was initially drawn to Mirror Mask because Neil Gaiman co-wrote the screenplay. While I'm not a big fan of his work, he's no hack so at the least I'd be seeing a fantasy film that goes beyond the run-of-the-mill. And the movie did not disappoint.

The story concerns Helena Campbell, a 15 year-old girl and aspiring artist whose parents own and run a small circus. We are introduced to Helena as she is lying in bed shirking her work responsibilities for the circus. She is confronted by her mother and wishes she were dead. Shortly after this common parent-child confrontation, Joanne – the mother, falls unconscious during the show and is hospitalized. Struggling with guilt, Helena wakes up in a dreamworld which was lovingly rendered in CGI. Truth be told, its gorgeous. There is a mix of normal buildings with fantastic ones. Helena meets a juggler named Valentine who becomes her partner and comic foil. Everyone wears masks and there are several strange creatures including sphinxes that seem to wear masks that are human faces. And so, with Valentine in tow, Helena goes through a voyage of self-discovery with teenaged tenacity. She is mistaken for a princess and arrested. After she's found to be the wrong person, Helena learns that dark powers are encroaching on those of light and she undertakes the task of finding the charm which will awaken the Light Queen who was put under a spell and fell into a magical slumber.

It was an enchanting story and was beautiful. I give the production crew credit for making a wonderful other world whose visual appeal didn't overshadow the story which interspersed the adventure with some good humor. And to top it off, books play a prominent role and there's a really cool library. If that wasn't enough, Stephen Fry plays the librarian.

Mirror Mask is no longer playing in Madison. Hopefully it will return to the cheap theater as it most definitely deserves a longer run than it enjoyed.