"Alice in Wonderland" - Starring Mia Wasikowska, Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, Anne Hathaway, Crispin Glover, Matt Lucas, and the voice talents of Stephen Fry, Michael Sheen, Christopher Lee and Alan Rickman based on the books by Lewis Carroll, screenplay by Linda Woolverton, and directed by Tim Burton.
(As always, "spoiler alert")
In reading Carroll's books as a youngster and then reading them again recently, last year to be exact, I firmly believe that Carroll's intent was not to instill morals or purpose into his writing but to recreate the astonishing wonder of a child's mind. Burton, while having to battle the forces of timeline, story, and modernity, recreates this mind and launches the audience "through the looking glass" towards a child's mind of wonder. Yet in Burton's retelling Alice is no longer a child but is instead on the cusp of becoming all too grown up. Burton's direction simplifies the world of wonderland to the world of a child, good and evil, love and fear, big and small but also holds onto the complexities of "growing up" and of knowing one's self.
Seemingly destined to run away from the prim and proper suffocation of British society Alice scurries off on the day of her engagement and follows the white rabbit down his most famous hole. From there Burton takes the audience into a world of impossible things. Not sure if the Alice the white rabbit lured down the whole is the Alice from before the tenants of "underland", naively named "Wonderland" by the young Alice, are skeptical to see if she will indeed defeat the Red Queen's champion the Jabberwocky. The defeat of the Jabberwocky thusly returning the crown to the white queen and restoring the wonder and majesty of "underland" to the marvel of Alice's youth. After an initial fright and introduction of the stuffy order (the Red Queen) the lowly rebelling residents of Wonderland give Alice a chance and lead her to the Mad Hatter.
What follows after the initial introduction of the story is Alice's quest to not only regain her "muchness," but to know herself and to realize that "all the truly great people are indeed mad." With the Mad Hatter acting as guide and white queen acting as the ideal, Alice is forced to realize her responsibility and is compelled to decide for herself what her destiny really is.
Supported by a veteran cast, relative newcomer Wasikowska gives a strong performance that retains the childlike wonder essential to Carroll's Alice, but also rises to the occasion possessing the strength necessary for Burton's heroine. Carter's Red Queen is massively authoritarian but sympathetic as all good villains should be. Glover's Knave of Hearts is truly venomous and Hathaway's White Queen is angelic and pure. Deep’s nuanced performance adds depth and purpose to a character normally reserved for absurdity, immaturity and foolishness. Burton's vision and graphic style adds to a truly magnificent wonderland and brings this classic tale to the big screen with reinvented purpose. Yet through Burton's great sophistication and visual technique he also manages to allow the audience to escape and tell his tale with great levity as well.
The lesson of Burton's "Alice" is to embrace "madness" and responsibility and to truly know one's self, and not to cover your individuality and innocence under the guise of rules and order, to find balance between absurdity and responsibility, madness and sanity. Burton's "Alice" while vastly different from Carroll's strikes at the heart of childlike wonder and fear that comes with "growing up," thus leads me to assert that Carroll, much like this viewer, would be extremely pleased. 5/5 Remotes
No comments:
Post a Comment