Just yesterday I thought I got the end of a roll of paper in The Journal Report's coverage of the Environment. There was the front page, then in front of that, a half-front page with the same text and graphic, connected to a full page on the back. You could pull away the false front page to reveal a one-and-a-half page BMW ad. Now that's clever! But.
But the difference between the Wall Street Journal and the LA Times is that the LA Times made it so that the entire front page was an advertisement! You could still read everything you needed to in the Wall Street Journal without a painted Johnny Depp inviting you to see his latest movie (which, by the way, was formulaic, visually riveting but soulless, and not nearly odd enough to grab my attention).
End Transmission.
SPOILER:
As I see it, the ending can be interpreted one of two ways:
1. In support of Imperialism, Opium Trade/Opium Wars, and "RAPE OF CHINA!" as one friend put it.
2. An ironic rejection of this. After all, Alice is Crazy, and only crazy people could possibly come up with ideas like trading with China, D.A.R.E. [why yes, that is from the Surgeon General], and funding drug-producing contras and turning a blind eye when these drugs make their way into America. Among other things.
I sure hope it is the second. Otherwise it's a very cold and frightening move on Burton's part. But with my disappointment in the movie, I am inclined to believe Burton's message is the first option.
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Unfortunately, the whole movie does seem to be along the lines of glorifying the insane er... impossible. It is entirely likely that he's saying only the insane would support something like the Opium trade, but that may not be a negative comment. That insanity drives us to achieve the impossible, much like when the British took over the Opium trade and forcibly opened China to their merchants. Proving both points valid, and making the movie more disturbing than it was initially.
ReplyDeleteGood point. Usually I am all for shades of gray. I was just so disturbed by the ending, I think, that I wanted to think the best of Burton. But he's more complex than that, and here delightfully disturbing, though the realization has settled deep in my gut about as comfortably as Taco Bell in the last 1500 meters of a 5k.
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