18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
PARABLE FOR OUR PRESENT FREE MARKET MATERIALIST AGE: WEALTH HOLDS NO POWER, ONLY LOVE IN POVERTY AND RENUNCIATION FOR OTHERS, April 3, 2008
This review is from: Alice (DVD)
The US media cannot see it and thus will not tell you:
There is no joy in material wealth, only in absolute renunciation of wealth to give oneself to others in Love.
This is Allen's most well developed film technically with its stunning sets and exquisite cinematography, both by the best in the business of that time. The actors as well, from the briefest walk-on are top notch, and thus the New York review considers wasted. Not so; they are used exquisitely in perfect measure, and had no more to say. Brevity is the soul of wit, and their brief appearances merit another viewing. In fact for every reason this film demands another viewing, repeatedly.
In this film we find not only Allen's cinematic technical and directorial prowess on best display, but also his writing, which is profound and deeply moral and true and must be seen once more. There are two aspects to this writing, form and content. Like a modern novel, a form with which since
Love and Death Allen has always wrestled, this film teaches you how to view itself. Like James Joyce's
Ulysses (Gabler Edition), we are taught how to watch this film, and thus rewarded in further viewings. A professor here tells us how we read the voices in novels as interior monologues and ruminations whereas in film we see exterior speech to often devoid of the interior life.
This film is all about the interior life of the eternal soul as opposed to idle materialist empty orgies. We need that professor's indication to understand how to see this film, which begins with an interior musing over breakfast. See it again. The unsophisticated viewer might lose track of all which is going on; it took me several viewings, well rewarded to follow the thread all the way through, knowing there is still so much more to see.
The classical allusions in themselves are fascinating and deserving of a doctoral thesis. For instance the Baldwin brother appearance as a deceased first beau, perfectly played, resonantes with
Joyce's the Dead in which another husband competes with a lost loved one. The hilarious scene in which a love potion mistakenly placed as nutmeg in the Christmas eggnog causes strangers to fall hopelessly in love with Alice reminds us of
Romance of Tristan & Iseult as well as intriguing insight on the fatal and annoying aspects of celebrity in which perfect strangers fall confusedly and eternally in love with a cinematic fictional representation. One feels here that Allen and Farrow are making a true comment about strangers and other fans at Manhattan cocktail parties swearing their undying allegiance based on personal reaction to their anonymous art.
I had long thought the best Woody Allen films were his collaborations with Ms. Farrow; I had long thought that
Broadway Danny Rose was their finest film, with its true moral and lesson for life: Forgiveness, Acceptance and Love. This film beats it in every way, and thus most other US cinema as well. Woody Allen appears on the Vatican's list of 100 best movies; I cannot recall if this is one, but it ought to be.
In fact comparing the two films, Danny Rose and ALice, we see the full range of Farrow's powers as an actress. There she plays a gun moll; here she is a perfect representation of a young lady who had spent years among the nuns, who had even entered the novitiate. Her every mannerism and her constantly polite and demure expression are exact, nearly painfully correct and essential to the power of this drama. See it again. Does she not remind you of people you knew?
And her representation of the emotionally devastating effects of adultery and its banal, destructive emptiness is true to life, something Hollywood never tells us. Cybill Shepherd guiding her to saleable stories ("no nuns") refelcts this as explicitly as the professor's lesson in voices.
Please see this movie. Without revealing any spoilers, let us simply say that Mother Theresa of Calcutta wins. See this film.
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Alice with the champagne glass, April 27, 2001
Woody Allen's attempt at light comedy after the heaviness of Crimes and Misdemeanors only comes alive sporadically, when he exercises the Wonderland associations of his title character. As a wealthy socialite with a back problem, Mia Farrow consults a Chinese acupuncturist who feeds her herbs which have varying results. Farrow's appearance as if she were Joan Crawford is jarring, and the falseness of the environment is also represented by the museum-like apartment all in yellow which she shares with William Hurt, and her servants. One can detect things Allen may have picked from his association with Farrow - his description of her mother as a "third rate" actress, and Alice's admiration for Mother Theresa, but though her talkativenss is meant to be comic (occasionally she reminded me of Judy Garland circa MGM), it comes across as wearisome, though Farrow never appears as arrogant at Allen sometimes has - she's not really the judgmental type. Her best scene involves her transformation from Allen's stammering doppel-ganger to femme fatale in a seduction of Joe Mantegna. The tone of these kind of scenes are introduced by the use of music on the soundtrack- Limehouse Blues, which of course relates to the acupuncturist, and La Cumparsita, which sounds similar to The Pajama Game's Hernando's Hideaway. Allen scores laughs from Farrow being invisible, where a phone receiver is seen dangling in mid air, and with a love potion that is misused at a party and she is swamped by admirers. He also tries for some visual effects with Alex Baldwin as a half visible ghost from Farrow's past and Mantegna and Judy Davis making love in front of video screens, and though a flying sequence is less effective, he does use vocal memory when Farrow and Balwin dance together. There are two instances where the memory effects are distinctly theatrical, with lighting changes and houselights present. Allen also includes a lot of anti-Catholic jokes, as if to make a nice change from his self-referential anti-semitism. His use of the actors is wildly variable, with Blythe Danner (in the best Allen role she's had to date) as Farrow's sister, Robin Bartlett as a friend of Farrow's, Mantegna a puppy-dog sweet love interest though hardly the "dangerous" person Farrow describes him to Baldwin as, and Bernadette Peters funny as a muse. Baldwin isn't around long enough and him being a semi-presence doesn't help, Hurt is dull and seems uncomfortable, Cybill Shepherd and Gwen Verdon are wasted, and Davis has little to do, though thankfully Allen would use her to greater effect later in Husbands and Wives, Deconstructing Harry and Celebrity.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Whimsy and Fantasy, October 31, 2001
This review is from: Alice (DVD)
While I gave this film a 4 star rating, I have to say that it is one of the films I watch repeatedly. In "Alice," Woody Allen has taken his cue from Fellini's "Juliet of the Spirits" and assembled a better story and superior film.
The story of a disenchanted housewife finding her real desires and discovering the truth about her pampered but sterile existence is unfolded with such joy and air-light humor that I couldn't help but be charmed. The concept of self discovery after years of self delusion was explored in more somber ways in Allen's "Another Woman." Here, the use of magic potions are administered ostensibly to relieve Alice's psychosomatic discomforts. The cures actually allow the character vehicles for seeing her life from new perspectives.
Alice's descent into Wonderland is a great escape, very entertaining. Her character is an upper crust variation on ones she's done in other Allen films, but Farrow shows her range when, in the script's moment of intoxication, she moves in a split second from mousy uncertainty to voluptuous seductress. The humor is mostly character-driven and this mousse of a confection is a great way to remove oneself from the stresses of a long week.
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