Ocorreu-me uma coisa, depois de assistir e ter tempo para digerir o Alice no País das Maravilhas do Tim Burton. Eu tinha ouvido as terríveis críticas contra o filme, que não deixam de ter seu fundamento, já que Burton passou por cima do cerne da história original de Lewis Carroll, que eram as brincadeiras semânticas no idioma inglês. E ele tem cérebro e capacidade de cineasta para fazer algo mais próximo do original, mesmo que esteja contando uma história intrinsecamente diferente com sua Alice (Kingsley, não Liddell como a original).
No entanto, tirando esse grave deslize, o filme funciona muito bem pra mim. Achei os personagens relativamente bem construídos, o visual muito bem elaborado e o roteiro interessante.
Fui vê-lo na sala 3D com sistema IMAX e tenho que admitir que foi o primeiro filme que vi onde o 3D de fato funciona. Mas também é preciso ressaltar que o sistema IMAX perde um pouco a noção do que é o limite inferior da tela e as legendas acabam aparecendo sobre o rosto de quem está falando.
Quanto ao roteiro, muita gente não entende muita coisa e acha que Burton inventou algo completamente diferente da história original. Na verdade, ele se baseia em um poema mencionado casualmente na segunda aventura de Alice (Através do Espelho e o que Alice encontrou lá), sobre o tal monstro Jabberwocky, o Frabjuous Day, o violento Bandersnatch e até o Jubjub bird que rouba os gêmeos Tweedledee e Dweedledum (Ótimos na interpretação do ator Matt Lucas). Aliás, o próprio Chapeleiro interpretado por Johnny Depp recita o início do poema em um tom soturno, enquanto caminha pelos escombros do País das Maravilhas com uma diminuta Alice em seu chapéu. O mesmo poema que o Gato cantarola no desenho original de Walt Disney. Nos livros, não passa de uma menção inócua, uma ponta solta no roteiro de Carroll. Mas Burton faz do poema o mote para esta nova aventura, como se tentasse resolver algo que ficou no ar no original.
O que realmente me deixou interessado foi a batalha final. Li críticas que a desmereceram, dizendo que as poduções estão agora teimando em terminar com batalhas épicas depois do sucesso do Senhor dos Anéis. Mas essa batalha é mais do que isso. Claro, é preciso estar um pouco por dentro da história britânica para perceber, e eu mesmo não teria percebido se não tivesse pintado a Cleyde Yáconis fazendo a rainha Elizabeth em Mary Stuart há alguns meses atrás.
Elizabeth, rainha da Inglaterra, era prima de Mary Stuart, rainha da Escócia. Elizabeth descobriu os planos de Mary Stuart para roubar-lhe o trono, prendeu a prima por décadas e acabou por julgá-la e sentenciá-la a ser decaptada ("Cortem-lhe a cabeça!"). Todos sabem aliás que Elizabeth, uma ruiva, usava muito vermelho e tinha uma cabeça enorme.
A batalha final do filme é uma amálgama disso e muito mais. De um lado, a rainha cabeçuda é ao mesmo tempo Elizabeth, a rainha de copas do primeiro livro de Carroll, baseado em jogos de cartas (daí os soldados em forma de carta e o valete Stayne que sempre a acompanha), e a rainha vermelha do segundo livro, basado em jogos de xadrez. Do outro lado, sua irmã, a rainha branca do segundo livro, que é ao mesmo tempo Mary Stuart. Esta segunda é um pouco mais difícil de reconhecer, e eu mesmo só fui perceber o fato quando seu exército de peças de xadrez se aprontou, tendo à frente o Chapaleiro trajando kilt com uma claymore (enorme espada escocesa), ao lado da Lebre com seu inconfundível sotaque escocês.
Burton no entanto inverte o resultado da história, dando a vitória para Mary Stuart. Ainda não entendi completamente o motivo. Se ele está apenas seguindo o paradigma da Disney, diante do qual a rainha vermelha de copas é a vilã e deve perder; se ele tem alguma predileção pela Escócia ou ódio pela Inglaterra; ou mesmo se o próprio Carroll em algum momento fez essa crítica política em suas histórias (que adoravam criticar a realeza).
terça-feira, maio 25, 2010
segunda-feira, maio 17, 2010
Dream
It's been a while since I've written, I know. As life moves on at an ever more intense pace, nearing my departure for London, I get very little time to write. I also believe, despite being out of the advertising agencies and into the world again, that nothing has happened lately that seemed interesting enough to write. Only things that were interesing enough for me. Details about the English language, random surreal thoughts, plans for the future and frustrations with my painting. That's all I've thought about. Oh, and an obssession with Frank Wedekind's Spring Awakening that has lasted for two whole weeks after I saw it in my grandfather's theater [1][2][3]
However, I did dream something lately that I thought was worth mentioning.
As usual, I cannot remember much of the dream except for the last few minutes of it. I was walking through a city landscape with a young child in hand. We were both looking for something. Although I'm not aware of what it was, I know it was something that fell into a river and was flowing downstream. As a consequence, we were visiting all the sites with rivers in the city, being exposed to much of the putrid water and misery that usually resides in the riverbanks. At some point, we came to a place were the river ran in a very thin stream along a concrete canal. There's a detail though: we walked past the second half of a nuclear submarine that seemed to have run ashore in that canal. In the dream, it seemed to me like something perfectly possible. Tragic, but possible nonetheless, like one of those big oil tankers we might find in beaches, corroded by time and rust. But now that I think about it with my waking mind, I see the incoherence of a nucleear submarine sailing up a shallow stream like that. A little after the tragic sub, we found a place where the stream broadened, and chunks of metal floated still on it. On one of these, we talked to denizens of the riverside, creatures who were half men and half dolls, like living toy art. Half of their faces were stricken with famine and disease. The other half gleamed like plastic with nonchallant geometric shapes. There was the oddness of the occasional plastic duck foot where a human foot should be, but other than that, they seemed to stand tall and somewhat healthy for miserable people. The child went ahead to ask them about whatever it was we were looking for. They said they hadn't seen it, but it should have floated further down the river by then.
My dream ended with the child and I hopping off the piece of metal, as it hit the curb on the side of the river. I say "curb", because by then the river was turning into something similar to a paved street, with the fetid polluted water resembling asphalt in its blackness and thickness. The child told me we should head back.
"The only thing we'll find further down the river is your deeper instinct", he said. As if perhaps that was something we should avoid.
=======
After I woke up, I struggled not to forget that last scenario of the dream. I knew there was something to that submarine. Later on, while I took my morning bath, I found out what it was. Aside from the strangeness of it being where it was, there was another erotic metaphor to be understood. The phallic shape of the submarine, entering what could only be described as a canal, forcing itself up the canal, where it shouldn't be. I also felt perhaps there was another meaning to be understood in the dream, regarding the fact that I was a grown up, being lead by a child who had more maturity and understanding about what was going on than I did. It related to that idea in Masculist literature about the abscence of the mentor/father figure. But I'm still not sure how to put this in words.
The dream also expresses this veiled fear of mine, that the path of instincts ("your deeper instincts") only leads to (or perhaps leads past) much misery and decadence. And that is why I usually prefer the path of discipline and reason.
There are other hidden meanings in the dream. But those, I believe are best kept to myself. After years of blogging, I've come to learn that there is such a things as being too personal to tell...
However, I did dream something lately that I thought was worth mentioning.
As usual, I cannot remember much of the dream except for the last few minutes of it. I was walking through a city landscape with a young child in hand. We were both looking for something. Although I'm not aware of what it was, I know it was something that fell into a river and was flowing downstream. As a consequence, we were visiting all the sites with rivers in the city, being exposed to much of the putrid water and misery that usually resides in the riverbanks. At some point, we came to a place were the river ran in a very thin stream along a concrete canal. There's a detail though: we walked past the second half of a nuclear submarine that seemed to have run ashore in that canal. In the dream, it seemed to me like something perfectly possible. Tragic, but possible nonetheless, like one of those big oil tankers we might find in beaches, corroded by time and rust. But now that I think about it with my waking mind, I see the incoherence of a nucleear submarine sailing up a shallow stream like that. A little after the tragic sub, we found a place where the stream broadened, and chunks of metal floated still on it. On one of these, we talked to denizens of the riverside, creatures who were half men and half dolls, like living toy art. Half of their faces were stricken with famine and disease. The other half gleamed like plastic with nonchallant geometric shapes. There was the oddness of the occasional plastic duck foot where a human foot should be, but other than that, they seemed to stand tall and somewhat healthy for miserable people. The child went ahead to ask them about whatever it was we were looking for. They said they hadn't seen it, but it should have floated further down the river by then.
My dream ended with the child and I hopping off the piece of metal, as it hit the curb on the side of the river. I say "curb", because by then the river was turning into something similar to a paved street, with the fetid polluted water resembling asphalt in its blackness and thickness. The child told me we should head back.
"The only thing we'll find further down the river is your deeper instinct", he said. As if perhaps that was something we should avoid.
=======
After I woke up, I struggled not to forget that last scenario of the dream. I knew there was something to that submarine. Later on, while I took my morning bath, I found out what it was. Aside from the strangeness of it being where it was, there was another erotic metaphor to be understood. The phallic shape of the submarine, entering what could only be described as a canal, forcing itself up the canal, where it shouldn't be. I also felt perhaps there was another meaning to be understood in the dream, regarding the fact that I was a grown up, being lead by a child who had more maturity and understanding about what was going on than I did. It related to that idea in Masculist literature about the abscence of the mentor/father figure. But I'm still not sure how to put this in words.
The dream also expresses this veiled fear of mine, that the path of instincts ("your deeper instincts") only leads to (or perhaps leads past) much misery and decadence. And that is why I usually prefer the path of discipline and reason.
There are other hidden meanings in the dream. But those, I believe are best kept to myself. After years of blogging, I've come to learn that there is such a things as being too personal to tell...
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