I have to admire this

... although surrealism and fantasy are not generally elements of the films I deeply connect with. However, the opening and closing scenes with the bureaucrat upon whom the protagonist's whole future depends establish for me the sure touch of both director and actress; in a few conversations, he establishes the all-too-common plight of this woman. Her acting is effortless and spot-on in mood and tone. After that, the director can, in my opinion, take the film anywhere he chooses --- he could have stayed in grim bureaucratic reality, which is what I was expecting, and that would have been fine. But the surprising transition into a surreal, almost Alice in Wonderland mise-en-scene was amazing. There were elements of the late nineteen sixties (I'm old enough to rememeber those years) in the film as well.

But it takes a certain type of viewer to appreciate this film. I'll confess that is not I. I enjoy films that are more real than life, in a sense, and the transportation of the viewer into another world means another geography and another set of characters, not another realm. This does not include science fiction --- which I gobble up. But it has to be "believable" science fiction. This had elements of 2001: A Space Odyssey toward the end of that film which was, I confess, not my favorite part of 2001.

That said, I can still admire the beauty and artistic professionalism of the work here. I wish I were still connected enough with my youthful flexibility (physically and mentally!) to have stayed with it and taken it on its own terms. On the other hand, when I see films that do not devolve enough from my own rather mundane middle-class background, I am bored silly. So all in all, though this is not my "type" of movie, I still admire the imagination and risk that went into it.