I haven't seen anything this hypnotically beautiful and original since "Alice in Wonderland" -- not the '51 Disney version, but the more astonishing one I saw first in my mind.

		'MirrorMask' Rating: PG for mild thematic images and some scary images. Starring: Stephanie Leonidas, Jason Barry, Gina McKee. Director: Dave McKean.

Such is the impact of "MirrorMask," whose dream-theme design resembles Lewis Carroll's in structure but is otherwise a unique collaborative product of director Dave McKean's imagination, Jim Henson Co.'s spectacular new digital animation and a stunning live-action performance by young actress Stephanie Leonidas.

Leonidas plays soulful, sullen adolescent Helena, who wants to run away FROM rather than TO the circus -- namely, the low-budget one operated by her parents (Gina McKee and Rob Brydon), in which she performs. The novelty and ambient charm of juggling have long since worn off for this girl.

Self-indulgent Helena would rather be drawing-- weird, fantastic black-and-white images in charcoal -- anywhere and everywhere, on the sidewalks, the walls of her room and in her dreams. But her mother suddenly takes ill and must undergo a terrible operation. Helena falls asleep, sick with worry and guilt, and is propelled into a wildly surreal labyrinth. It's far less wonderful Wonderland than Alice's, with precious few clues on how to get out.

Finding the powerful mirrormask itself -- akin, in a sort of second-generation way, to "The Mask" that transformed Jim Carrey -- would help. A big hindrance, on the other hand, is the riddle-posing, nasty-tempered sphinx that keeps popping up, posing as a house cat, multiplying and barring her way.

Meanwhile, fish swim through the air, spiders and policemen-bugs on stilts chase her, birds named Bob have beaks that keep falling off, and books fly around their library shelves and must be caught with butterfly nets before they can be checked out.

Helena has a dorky masked guide named Valentine (Jason Barry) through it all, but he's more trouble than he's worth, baffled as well as disgusted by her naked face: "How can anyone tell if you're happy or sad without a mask?"

This phantasmagorically creative, sophisticated mummer's tale, not to be missed by the adventurous, is made wholly seductive by the superb, un-cute naturalism of Leonidas, with whom I am hopelessly in love.

A fine hint of the wry adult humor in this visually breathtaking flight of fancy is contained in director McKean's characterization of the innovative animation technology and cyber-troubles he struggled with in "MirrorMask's" making:

"I learned that computers are as human as the rest of us. Our technical director named the machines after different bands. The four Macs in the edit suite were named after the Beatles. Fair enough, I was John. But then we needed a fifth, so he named it Yoko -- and they all stopped talking to each other."

"MirrorMask" opens Friday at the Harris Theater.