Rating:
3 bowls of popcorn and a mushroom (or a shroom…?)
I’ve never taken peyote and watched Alice in Wonderland, but I’m sure it would be one hell of an experience. This movie is trippy enough without the help of a psychoactive drug.
Here’s the skinny … Alice is bored with her lessons and she falls into her version of dreamland. Her version of dreamland is a wonderland where everything is nonesense. Her curiosity gets the best of her thanks to the waistcoated white rabbit and she falls down a rabbit hole. So, essentially, Alice in Wonderland is a morality tale about curiosity.
You see, Alice is a logical child. She accepts that falling down a rabbit hole isn’t killing her, so she appriciates the amazement of it all. She eats a mushroom and shrinks, then eats the same mushroom and grows. This doesn’t concern her, she accepts that that is how this mushroom works and moves on. She doesn’t question talking doors or singing dodo birds (even ones that say “stop kicking that mackeral!“), but doesn’t seem to think she is dreaming. She readily accepts this world of nonsense without question. I think she wants the nonsense because she is bored. She extremely curious and needs something new to discover. Then it all becomes a bit disturbing to her when that chaos starts to seem ridiculous to even her. Perhaps this where “curiosity killed the cat” (or the oyster) comes into play?
Then Alice meets a stoned caterpillar and he asks a profound question: Who are you? It’s a question she can’t answer. Her reply: “I don’t know, sir. I’ve changed so many times since this morning.”
Perhaps that’s the key to this movie: To accept that you and the world around you are constantly changing and you must accept those changes with grace and curiosity because, here’s the deal, you can “always take more than nothing, but you can’t take less.”
Sigh… I feel like this review is getting away from me. Allow me to sum up with two final thoughts on this classic.
Thought 1: When Alice is desperate to go home and she sinks onto a rock and starts to cry, the nonesense around her dissappears. If that ain’t symbolism, I don’t know what is.
Thought 2: Doors are symbolic for Alice. A series of doors stand between Alice and Wonderland as if her subconscious is warning her to be wary of her own curiosity. Doors stand between a crying and lost Alice and the Queen of Hearts as if Wonderland was trying to protect Alice from the Queen. Doors then stand between Alice in Wonderland and Alice in reality (remember when her dream turns into a nightmare?)… So many doors, so little time.
A baker’s dozen down!
PS – “If you don’t think, you shouldn’t talk” … yeah, the Mad Hatter and March Hare are pretty dang smart.
The Movie Marathon 
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