"Alex in Wonderland" is an absolutely different kind of film.It is one of those American films which talks about film making albeit in a very superficial manner.This is one of the few weak spots in the film as its narrative shifts quickly from one philosophical or ideological stance to another.This film can also be termed as Alex's adventures in wonderland as its eponymous protagonist film director Alex tries really hard to strike a fine balance between his professional and personal lives.Director Paul Mazursky is able to make his film appear a serious experience for a débutant film director by ensuring that there is absolutely no coherent link between two phases of a director's lives : personal life and professional life.Although Alex's journey in wonderland begins with a truly shocking scene which might be construed as somewhat scandalous by certain prudes,overall story gathers momentum once more pertinent characters are introduced.Paul Mazursky also plays a brief yet important role in this film to make us aware of the fact that not all filmmakers live in wonderland.His film suggests that most film directors live in ordinary surroundings where they try to deal with their strengths and weaknesses in equal measure in order to invigorate their artistic lives.It does not matter if not all viewers would be able to associate themselves with "Alex in Wonderland" and its hidden motives.One thing which can be said is that some serious fans will not be disappointed as they get to see great master of cinema Italian cinema maverick Fellini and French cinema diva Jeanne Moreau.

Contemporary audiences who wonder how loony, "What were they thinking?" early 70s Hollywood studio disasters like "Myra Breckinridge" were ever made would do well to take a look at "Alex in Wonderland": a near anthropologic look at the confused atmosphere that was Hollywood in the 70s.

Donald Sutherland (looking alarmingly like "Myra Breckinridge"s latter-day hippie director, Michael Sarne) plays a young, hot, filmmaker of the sort Hollywood was blindly courting in the years following "Easy Rider." With the entire industry opening up their doors to him to do whatever he wants, Sutherland is hamstrung by his inability to latch onto what his next film project should be. Torn between a desire to do something meaningful and yet still operate within the "system" of Hollywood success, Sutherland, through a series of fantasies and vignette encounters, grapples with the very real possibility that he really hasn't any more depth in him than the Hollywood hacks he derides, and that his half-hearted hippie-era beliefs bring him no closer to happiness or self awareness than anyone else.

There is much to dislike about the structure of "Alex in Wonderland" (riffing on Fellini's "8 1/2", the film is mired in too many 70s era movie clichés),but I enjoyed how it shined a refreshingly candid light on that point in time when Hollywood was so unsure of itself that it was handing over millions to any and everyone calling themselves a "director" so long as they were young and espoused a "now" and "with it" philosophy. It implodes the romanticism that shrouds Hollywood's most recent "Golden Age" and provides a well-observed character study to boot.

If there is a problem with Hollywood films about Hollywood, it's that those involved (understandably) take the business of making movies so very seriously, but most of us average folks find it hard to identify meaningfully with individuals who agonize and fret in palatial homes and near-perfect weather, while producing for the most part, escapist (sometimes willfully mindless) entertainment motivated principally by the desire to make enough money to buy even bigger palatial homes.

Paul Mazursky co-wrote and directed this self-indulgent, though rarely boring, chronicle of an emerging movie director's quest to find a relevant, honest subject for his second picture. With reality and fantasy intermingling (often with a heavy hand),Mazursky is able to try out different filmmaking styles and techniques--some bold and some pretentious. This approach turns the picture into a series of vignettes, not all of which hold together, however there are wonderful individual moments amongst the dross. Donald Sutherland has a magical chance meeting with Jeanne Moreau in front of a book store, and there's an elaborate, surreal scene of war on Hollywood Boulevard (as seen through the jaundiced eye of a movie camera). A prickly bit of overstated authority on the U.S./Mexico border (with Sutherland singled out possibly because of his long hair and beard) is still topical today, however the circus folk and hippie longueurs probably looked embarrassing and dated only a year or so after the movie was released. An excursion to Rome seems included only to get a Federico Fellini cameo in the movie (Mazursky emulates Fellini's "8½" throughout, however the director's bit part is a gambit that fails to pay off). Everyday scenes of family life (house hunting, grocery shopping, etc.) are handled far too lackadaisically, although the depiction of Hollywood, California circa 1970 (wherein the Old Regime has been replaced with the avant garde New Wave) has a pointed preciseness which makes "Alex in Wonderland" an occasionally bracing document of its era. ** from ****