Synopsis
This beautiful fairy tale-like movie is about an overnight adventure of Helena, a 15-year-old girl in a family of circus entertainers. Helena, sick of her life in a circus, has a quarrel with her mother who forces that life on her, but the mother falls quite ill that night. Helena is convinced that it is all her fault. Now Helena begins an adventure to save her mother fallen deep asleep in a bizarre world of which she isn't so sure if it is a dream or a reality. Just like Alice in Wonderland, Helena has a mission - to find ‘Mirror Mask.’ On her search for this mask, Helena comes face to face with her alter ego Black Princess, who has led an undesired life in this bizarre world following her mother Black Queen's orders. She desires to lock Helena in that world and to take Helena's place in the real world instead. Helena in the bizarre world and Black Princess in the real world are maximization of the two desires that exist within Helena who fought with her mother. Black Princess is truthful to her desires whereas Helena must sacrifice to a certain degree to realize the joint goal of her family rather than her own desires. The movie portrays the clash between the two desires with attractive imagery decorating the screen. The most outstanding quality of this film is its dreamy and fantastic art work. From pictures drawn by Helena, pictures by giant keepers of the key to the description of her territory by Black Queen, amazing pictures fill the screen for 100 minutes. The artistic sense of the director who created numerous music videos and participated in the art direction of the Harry Potter series is vividly alive in this film as well. (SOHN Hee Jeong)