Alice's Restaurant

Alice's Restaurant (1969)
a film by Arthur Penn

This movie is document of the counterculture movement and the young people in the end of the sixties. It keeps record of many aspects of the life of this generation and is greatly narrated by Arlo Guthrie in an entertaining tone of voice full of wit and irony.

This film features nice images and great music and I wouldn't doubt it is a milestone if you want to get a grasp of American culture seen through films. Some sequences such as the wedding or the old van in the road with the army trucks are really memorable because of its aesthetics and its satirical content. It is a story of the generation that lived the counterculture and broke the structure of society as it was thought until then and this is shown smoothly throughout the film in the clash of the citizens with the characters that integrate Alice's Restaurant.

I think it is a matter of empathy what made this story feel a bit distant from me. Maybe a deeper knowledge of American culture would make an instant classic. It is that sort of insight what separates this enjoyable story from the universal and memorable story I hoped it to become and leaves it in the limbo between light and vigorously critic entertainment.

I enjoyed the dynamic narration introduced by the music and the voice of Arlo Guthrie, who I did not know before finding this film but whose voice I can't get out of my head with his sticky tune: "you can eat everything you want at Alice's Restaurant".