Alice in Wonderland

I'm always a fan of dizzying allegory... how many twisted metaphors upon metaphors can we cram into one scene... I can't even begin to sort out exactly what each thing is until I've seen this beautiful, twisted movie at least a half-dozen more times. The labyrinthine sets that explain everything but stand silent, larger than any human who cries for recognition in the midst of all the lovely clutter!

Well, I do have a couple half-baked notions. One is the meaning of the female... okay, I can't say exactly what "she" is, sometimes she is Justice, sometimes Hope, or just Promises (which is basically the slutty form of Hope).....? and sometimes, in the case of the gaggle of groupie girls... I wouldn't venture a guess right at the moment, though the painter did say they "belong to the court." They all seem to "belong to the court," but then again, who doesn't?

The only other childlike observation I have is that this movie felt very much like Alice in Wonderland, the surreal journey through an intense, nightmarish but strangely humourous fairy-tale land... K often seemed to me like Alice herself, the way she would stand up to a dictatorial court, demand reason when everyone else accepted unreason, and appear unusually as the roving centerpiece of a never-endingly static journey.

Just weird, compelling! This will be my favorite movie for a long time, I have always enjoyed Orson Welles and would nod, surely, why not, when someone called him a genius, but now... oh sister, I am sold.