The Cheshire Cat's Smile

~ A Review

I walk home after the sky has moved from blue to purple, and above
the rooftops I see the thin sliver of a Cheshire cat smile.

Two nights before my sweetie, a friend and I went to watch the new
Alice in Wonderland film by Tim Burton in 3D. Its a rare treat to visit a
cinema from the Valleys of Wales, so we were most excited!

It was beautiful, and a strange blend of Alice in Wonderland,
Alice Through the Looking Glass and The Jabberwocky.
When the 3D technology has developed even a little further it will be a
fantastic addition to the visual experience and I look forward to seeing
how it may perhaps add to the storytelling. For the moment, it was
pretty (despite my personal difficulties focussing, and preference for
brighter colours, which were washed out by the special glasses). We all
giggled at the spectacle of ourselves in the huge frames over our modest
daily glasses we wear to see the world.

But I left the theatre feeling that here had been a spectacle, and
little else.

It being Burton, there were plenty of treats, and a familiar cast of
actors who pulled off their roles wonderfully. There were characters,
long loved and often missed, reappearing in new guises. There were
amazing details and vast vistas of beauty.

And yet it lacked something…

And under that sliver of moon I began to realise what.

In the story that captured our hearts so long ago, it wasn’t a
narrative that we fell in love with, but the surrealness, the moment by
moment twisting and turning of a world which whispered with wonder.

Now the fantastical has become so commonplace it cannot invoke the
same degree of dreaming on its own, and forcing a loose narrative on
pieces of art which have little truck with beginning, middle and end
takes a little more away.

The story of Alice is not a narrative, but a dream, and that is why
we love it.

Alice shows us how reality flows between the two worlds of dreaming
and waking, and watching her adventures lets us walk away with a little
piece of her ability to walk between these worlds. It felt to me like
the new film tried to make this more obvious, and perhaps missed the
point.

But it was still gorgeous, I will still watch it again, and I do
still adore the Cheshire Cat and his smile…

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