I want to say, if you are only going to see one woody allen movie see this, but I should probably say if you are only going to see one movie see this. At once, a rumination on the charm that movies hold for us, Allen is a wizard at contrasting it with dreary daily life and you really can’t decide which one is better. The thing that struck me about ’Purple rose..’ is how much it reminded me of another masterpiece movie ’The wings of desire’ in which an angel chooses to be human. Allen explores the notion that a perfect world might be boring. Adjusting to a perfect world surprisingly is no less of an ordeal than adjusting to the real one we encounter as we speak.
One of the best lines in the movie is about the ability to choose being a defining aspect of human beings. If you think about it though, Allen’s probably slyly wagging a finger in front of you saying not quite. I mean you don’t choose life. You can choose in life but there’s no getting around life itself. And the movie pretty much drives this home. We are not entitled to a relentless pursuit of happiness, half the time you are just chasing life to find you don’t like it but you come back to it anyway.
The idea that we might actually reject a perfect world because having been acclimatized to the real one, we might somehow have a soft spot for it, was what blew me away. Come to think of it, what’s the point in being perfect when it’s the norm of the day. The idea of making it big, doing something against the odds is what gives success its definition, I guess. So the means end up defining the value of the ends.
This is pretty much what the characters realize in the movie too, that real life for all its flaws and treachery is atleast that -real. I can’t say I buy into it but hey what choice do I have?