I remain completely shocked by the ending event of Tim Burton's new film, "Alice in Wonderland." While I enjoyed overall Burton's interpretation/amalgamation of Lewis Carroll's two tales, _Alice's Adventures in Wonderland_ and _Through the Looking Glass_, I was completely thrown by the following three elements:
1. Alice goes to China at the film's close. She essentially becomes the ultimate imperialist, realizing how she can extend the imperial commerce plans of her now-deceased father beyond even his own mad fancies. Thus, Alice is made to grow up (again), not into the proper, subdued, domestic woman, but a "new woman" who inherits the colonizer's mantle. I'm not sure which is better or worse. Or if, in fact, Alice is a doomed character, whose trips down the rabbit hole will be a life long process of growing up again and again. After all, while down the rabbit hole, she must grow up, grow down, grow up, grow down, and grow up again, depending on which substance she ingests at any particular time. Consequently, "growing up" is a mere illusion?
2. Why is the "Mad Hatter" (played wonderfully by Johnny Depp) a cross b/w an imbecile and a Scot? I couldn't figure out the Scottish allusion. Carroll himself had Irish roots. Does Burton have Scottish roots? Is there some jab at the Scots I should be aware of? (I just don't get it.)
3. Why was Alice Liddell changed to Alice Kingsley? I assumed we were talking about Henry Kingsley as the allusion--i.e. the brother of Charles Kingsley, who wrote the contemporary novel, _The Water-babies_. But just prior to the closing scene of the film, we find out that Alice's father's name was CHARLES Kingsley. Is this Burton conflating Henry Kingsley w/ Charles Dodgson (aka Lewis Carroll), or is Burton perhaps implying he's planning to make _The Water-babies_ into a similarly delightful film? Or, was it just an unintended consequence, one that only a reader of Victorian lit would construct?
Oh. and I do have a 4th element that threw me: the 3D showing of the film. Bleck! Aside from the random flecks of dust, mingling and floating in the sunbeams, I found the 3D distracting and headache inducing. In fact, this technique served to reinforce the fact that I was watching a movie, rather than allowing me to truly get lost in it. There is something to be said, after all, for the strength of the imagination over technology.
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I agree that Alice's Adventures in China threw me off at the end. Her travels to China did reaffirm the Victorian setting that might have been lost to the readers amidst the insanity of Won/underland. I think it does match with Alice's imperialistic nature. At the end of her first tale in Wonderland, Alice asserts her authority over the Queen and her court, thus dominating the world and returning to her own. She does the same thing by slaying the Jabberwocky in the movie. I suppose the next step for Alice is for her to become the ultimate colonizer in the real world.
ReplyDeleteI tried looking up why the Mad Hatter had a Scottish accent when he was mad, and the only answer I got was "because Johnny Depp is cool and he doesn't need a reason." Apparently he was inspired by a Glaswegian accent to get the "feel" for his character. I don't know Burton's say on the subject, but since the March Hare is also Scottish (and mad all the time) I'm assuming he has some hidden reason. Perhaps a crazed Scot attacked him when he was a small child.
Also, I think the Charles Kingsley reference was just another allusion to Victorian literature for the humor of the -ahem- elite audience of the film. Alice's flashback of her painting the white roses red (the woman who was supposed to be her mother-in-law mentioned it earlier in the movie, as well) was one thing that I giggled at but no one else did. There are other references in the movie that are not coming to me right now, but I just think that Burton added these little tidbits to reward those select members of the audience who really read the book and know more about the background of the movie than everyone else. Maybe that's just giving us (the class) way more credit than we deserve, but yay for us anyway!!
Also, 3D wouldn't bother me as much if it really made a difference. I saw Coraline in this new concept of 3D, and I didn't like it either. At least Coraline was animated, though. There's something off-putting about people in 3D...but it seems we're gonna have to get used to it!