Critical review - meeting a new Alice

Rating: 10/10 (11 September 2010)

I finally watched Tim Burton's "Alice in Wonderland," and am very happy about it. First - everyone remember that this is not the book, and not a retelling of the usual story in "Alice in Wonderland" movies past! I watched previews, and went into the film expecting it to be something new. Having read Lewis Carrol's "Through the Looking Glass" and "Alice in Wonderland," and having studied the poem "The Jabberwocky" in 5th grade or so, I was pleased to recognize much that you might find totally new and bizarre. I appreciate the addition of characters from "The Jabberwocky" (as they are originally in Wonderland, if I remember right) - it adds a dimension of the impossible to the surprisingly organized world of Wonderland. The book (I think "Alice in Wonderland," but it might be "Through the Looking Glass" - need to read them again to be sure) is organized like a chess game. Every new place/task that Alice encounters is physically separated by a stream or a forest or something, like the square spaces on a chess board. In each space, Alice has to solve some type of problem - math is mixed up in the stories (like chess), and strategy, and it's all related to character-building, and (of course!) the characters themselves...Lewis Carrol was extremely fond of children, and the Wonderland stories were originally invented to amuse the children of a close friend (there have been suspicions of pedophilia in his nature, but they are ungrounded and I think completely false. I believe that Lewis Carrol loved children because he still was one, or wanted to be. Anyway.) The author often came up with puzzles and riddles for the kids to solve, and the book (or maybe both books) is a checkered boardful of puzzles to figure out. That said, I see a lot of chess-y things in Burton's version. Like the book, it makes me wish I knew chess better. There's also the use of color - the red queen versus the white queen. Most of the red queen's domain is closer to black...but it's important that red is the opposite of white here, NOT flat black. The red queen wonders if it's better to be feared than loved - she makes her own choice, but it's also important to note that she HAS a choice, and humanly waffles over it. You would expect a color to be associated with white, since red = black, but that's not the case. The white queen and her consort are white, white, white (granted many things have strong colors on both sides. Burton excellently uses color to make us see black and white, yet the complexity of a world that has both.) There are certain things that are very strong blue, but they are associated with Alice - the impossible, the x factor, the catalyst, the viewer (you). Blue does not take a side, maybe it includes both. Finally, Wonderland is a return to childhood that retains the wisdom of an older person. Loss of innocence in the course of living cannot be denied, but when you return to your first loves, hopes, dreams, you find that they can work! in an amazing and true way. Loss of innocence is not loss of life, or love. I find that this film is not just about "finding yourself." ..as in, you're not looking for a person who stays the same and is easy to recognize. You find yourself changed -older, experienced, more or less certain, more or less smart- yet somehow you are the same. Hard to explain, so I'll just say: It's about finding yourself New.