In Closing

That is what this film does; it turns that given separation between audience and actor upon its end. No longer can we say that our existence is a matter of us, the (supposedly) sane, versus them, the (supposedly) insane. If one reflects on Norman’s comment, “we all go a little crazy sometimes,” we could translate the grim philosophy on the universality of affliction onto our own realities, making ourselves the shadow boxers living in black and white but constantly falling prey to the grey area of uncertainty. We are one in the same, the man in the mirror is you and the wonderland we claim to have slipped into by falling through the liquid looking glass is in fact our own world, our own existence. Alice, in the end, will wake up from her nightmare, her world no different from when she "fell asleep." We will never know for sure if Marion will wake up from her tragedy (or more appropriately, Norman's tragedy) to a world where she can make a full recovery.