Ok ok, Ill admit- MIRROR MASK- do you get it?!

[Krazedmuppet]

I mean, it was beautiful, absolutely beautiful, and weird. I loved it. My problem, I DON'T GET IT (or, not all of it)

Its very artsy, and I love that. I know its supposed to be like an Alice in Wonderland story, but still.

So my questions are

The White witch and the dark Witch- both her mom, or only one? Or is the reflection in the mirror, like one side is the good side (the light side) and one the bad, as in everyone has a good and bad side?

SO- did the bad Helena, escape to the "real world" trapping the good inside her drawings, her world in her mind?

Or when her mom got sick, it triggered her to regress to a simpler place in her mind, though crazy to us, is normal to her? (like her mom said in the begining "you cant handle the real world" when referring to the circus life) so when her "other self" gets out and tries to have a "normal life" she gets into bad stuff as in smoking and dating losers?

AAAAAAAHHHHHHH! Help! soo many questions, need to see it for the 3rd time....

 

[Infinity Sirius]

It's open for interpretation and in many aspects is similar to Labyrinth with "what really happened."

One is that Helena had a dream where all the people around her, her drawings, and her fantasies (if you listen closely at the beginning with the sock puppet theater you can hear Helena calls the white and black harlequinn puppet that drops down from the ceiling Valentine) meld together to help her cope with her mother's illness and her subconscious is trying to herlp help her understand who she is at a crucial point in her life. I'm suspecting she is a teenager on the cusp of entering the adult world like Sarah, still trying to figure out who she is.
The anti-Helena represents what Helena doesn't want to be as her true self is locked away in the dream world and her pictures capture her true self, so that is why she needs to he mirrormask so that her true self can be reflected in the real world.
The white queen can represent the hope that Helena has her mother will reawaken and the black queen is the embodiment of the argument she had with her mother about not letting her have a life. Ths can be the negative aspect of Helena's mother not letting her grow up and keeping her locked up in the circus with letting Helena grow.
And Valentine could just represent the boyfriend she wants or the friend she lacks in her circus life.

Another way is that Helena's mother is having the dream and she is watching her daughter explore her boundaries to come to accept the adult world or it's just a muddle of Helena's mothers hopes for her daughter.

Or it could a lucid dream on both their parts and they're sharing the dream world with Helena's mother as the queens and Helena as herself.

Or the dream world could be real, where Helena is really on a joruney. Helena's mother helps her in that one scene while looking for the charm, because the dream world is a crossroads for dreams and reality to collide. Like the space between wake and sleep, so Helena can access her mother's dream.

Or the dream world in itself is real brought to life by Helena it to life by her will.
Since Helena the creator is in danger, the illness of her mother, the world is calling for Helena, the creator ,to come and help it in it's hour of need. And all the actions of the anti-Helena occur, but when Helena finds the mirrormask and the mask reflects her desires the whole anti-Helena incident is wiped from everyone's memories except Helena and the real world goes on normally.

Or the entire dream world was brought to life for an instant and then blown away like a dandelion puff after it fulfilled it's purpose.

I think I covered all the bases there, but the movie is what you want it to be. Me, I favor the last intepretation with the symbolism of the first, which fits all the ideas.

 

[Krazedmuppet]

Thank you, that helped a lot I think I came to some them, but I just needed someone to put it together for me, lol


I still loved it.

 

[quixotic]

Bare in mind the fact that I have only seen this film once in the cinema, I thought then when Helena looked out of the windows into her 'real' life she was somehow seeing herself as she might become in the future if she didnt change her ways. She regretted acting the way she had done with her mum and the fear of becoming like that for good was in her. I think the evil Helena represented negative potential of what she could become if she didnt acknowlege the error in her ways, which seeing them acted out by the evil Helena made her recognise them. I will probably see something different when I watch it again, as the evil Helena cant have been the future Helena really as they battle it out with each other, but character wise, this may have shown the future of Helena if she had taken the alternative path.