just saw this movie this weekend,
and while i highly enjoyed it (as i do most Woody Allen movies)
i'm kinda lost on how it's supposed to be a take on Alice in Wonderland because the stories didn't seem similar at all to me.
d1esel6.blogspot.com
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Well I didn't think about it until I happened to read about an Alice in Wonderland reference in a book I'm reading. Then it hit me that yeah, there's a number of references to the fable. Dr. Yang essentially says to Alice "eat this, drink this, smoke this" and so on. Similar to the fable. A pampered little girl or a pampered Manhattanite. Fable Alice goes into a mystical journey in a rabbit hole and Movie Alice's journey starts with entering into Dr. Yang's hypnotic "spinning vortex wheel". You know the spinning graphic that you see in Vertigo, for example? Just before she is overcome by the vortex and put under hypnosis she says "I fall into the ... I'm". There is invisibility going on like the Cheshire Cat. Dr. Yang tells Alice that here problem is with her head (and heart) and the remedy is to fix it or "feed your head" like the dormouse said.
At least that is my take on this. Too bad it was "Dr. Yang's" last film but it had to happen sometime right? He was Detective Charlie Chan's "Number One Son" character. A phrase that has lasted and seemingly will last forever.