2 The Daily Tar Heel A Friday, September 23, 1977
By MELAME MODLIN
Asst. Arts Editor
The folks who brought you the Looking
Glass Cafe have taken their Alice-in-Wonderland
metaphor still further to create
The Mad Hatter, located downtown on
Franklin Street.
The Hatter bills itself as a"North Carolina
Style Deli," a puzzling term since the place
seems to have every element of a New York
delicatessen, right down to the bagels and
Dr. Brown's cream soda.
The decor is definitely no-frills there's a
pristine look to the wood-paneled walls and
chopping-block-style tables, which are so
new that they're even graffiti-free. Plastic
utensils and paper plates are also part of the
layout. Yet for all this spartan atmosphere,
great care and delicacy seem to be lavished
upon each sandwich and salad the kitchen
prepares so much in fact that service may
occasionally seem sluggish. It's probably
Things are hopping
at The Mad Hatter
worth the wait, though; portions are
generous and it's with an artistic hand that
the multi-layered sandwiches are put
together.
The menu is unlike any other in Chapel
Hill, and instills in the diner a feeling of
power. Given a choice of cheeses (from
among ten international varieties) and nine
different meats, the client can become a
Michelangelo or mozzarella or a Picasso of
pastrami, combining ingredients in whatever
fashion he finds gastronomically satisfying.
Sandwiches can be as straightforward as the
one-meat offering ($1.75) or as razzle-dazzle
as the mile-high three meat and three cheese.
Those who hanker after a lighter meal
might try this interesting twist, new on the
Chapel Hill scene: the Cheese Board($l.25),
with your choice of five varieties and any one
bread. Anything prepared on the premises
can be "carried out" as well.
Salad bar fanatics might find a veritable
wonderland in the one featured here. Forty
ingredients are arranged in their panoramic
glory, some of the more intriguing items
being raisins, olives, grapefruit sections and
anchovies.
Also for vegetarians, or anyone craving
something extraordinary, there are certain
creations that border on nirvana. One is the
"Mushroom Melt" sandwich which, in
addition to the main ingredient, features
cucumbers, sprouts, sunflower seeds and
tomatoes.
With a menu as varied as this one, you
would have to come back hundreds of times
before having to eat reruns. Considering the
quality of the ingredients, you may want to
have a shot at it, trying to sample every
possible combination. And, should your
passion for salads and sandwiches begin to
cool, it's possible you'll get hooked on the
desserts. It's never made clear who
"Barbara" is, but she is given credit on the
menu for creating the Carrot Cake and
Carob Brownies that are setting some
Chapel Hillians to drooling.
Some day when you're not particularly
late for a very important date, duck into the
basement of the Mad Hatter and let them
show you the smorgasbord of sandwiches
and salads.
Mystery and reality converge in Altman film
By HANK BAKER
DTH Contributor
The first half of Robert Altman's 3
Women is both tantalizing and wonderfully
realized. YouTeel as if you were beingdrawn
into something fascinating. The camera first
focuses on moving water and then on a
mysterious, hunched woman painting a
bizarre mural on the walls of an empty
swimming pool. Then the water, through
which we see the woman, becomes the.
steaming mineral water in a health spa pool.
Aging people are led through the water by
attendants, one of whom is Millie
Lamoreaux (Shelley Duvall). This
dichotomy between dream-like mystery and
reality becomes blurred as the film moves
along. You can't take your eyes off the screen
because of the extraordinary imagination
behind this most intersting and ultimately
maddening film.
There isn't much in the way of plot in the
film, because it isn't needed. The characters
hold the film togehter (at least most of it)
along with the circumstances that bring them
together. Millie Lamoreaux is mediocrity
personified. She rattles on about all sorts of
trivialities with her co-workers, who blithely
ignore her. Yet she keeps at her routine,
trying to be the cool, romantic, popular
socialite. Most people forget who she is, but
Pinky (Sissy Spacek), a very impressionable
new worker, thinks Millie is wonderful.
When Millie needs a new roommate. Pinky
jumps at the chance, delighted at her good
fortune.
Pinky, however, is all too perfect a match.
Awed by Millie's repartee about her
supposed social life and accomplishments.
Pinky becomes obsessed with Millie even
to the point of reading Millie's diary and
copying her Social Security number.
Through Millie, Pinky meets Tom (Robert
Fortier) and Willie (Janice Rule), who own
the apartment complex in which the girls
live, and a western tourist trap called Dodge
City, replete with bar and shooting range.
Willie, who rarely speaks, is also the painter
of the murals in the swimming pool.
Soon Millie grows tired of Pinky's naivete
and angrily tells her to leave. Shattered,
Pinky attempts suicide in the apartment
pool, but is saved before she drowns. Once
this happens, the film begins to take more
curious turns.
The success of the first half owes much to
the carefully realized portrait of Millie,
Pinky, and their everyday lives. The
dreariness of working at the spa, the
tackiness of the apartment complex (the
outside is painted in shades of purple), the
barren flatlands of the town and Dodge City.
MADMftTTEK
128 E. Franklin Street
Next to Yogurt Barn Downtown
Bar Phone: 929-8276 Deli Phone: 929-3824
Now Pool Tables
in the Game Room
and a New Back
Entrance (No Cover
XTT 1
Opn tnrt Dv V. XV ."H. I In I
Friday and Saturday
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("It sure looks like Texas," Pinky says.) Yet
the lack of normality in the first half of the
film (eccentricities abound everywhere) is in
keeping with what is to come. We get the
subtle mysteries that act as a prelude to the
second half Willie's silence, the brutally
sexual content of her murals, Pinky's fear of
guns, the self-contained twins at the spa who
live in a world of their own. At one point
Pinky says of the twins, "How do they know
which one they are? Do they ever switch
places with each other?"
Once Pinky recovers, she is transformed.
She refuses to recognize her own parents,
and begins to assume Millie's personality
and dominant role in the apartment.
Perplexed and frightened, Millie cannot
understand Pinky's callousness and cruelty.
But this is where the film becomes
problematic.
Altman has been concerned with the
switching and confusing of identities before
his Images, with its schizophrenic heroine
confusing the living with the dead, toys with
the idea without going into much depth.
Also like Images (and Brewster McCloud),3
Women is based on one of Altman's own
dreams. But a dream is an experience not
quite tangible you feel much more than
you can express. Once you have awakened,
all the details that would make it mean
something to others are not there. 3 Women
is frequently brilliant the first half ranks
with Altman's best and the second half
contains stunning sequences, such as Pinky's
chilling dream and the gripping sequence of
Willie's giving birth to a stillborn child.
But what are we to make of Pinky's
sudden reversion to a childlike state after her
dream, and of the matriarchal "family" at the
end consisting of the three women? The
transitions in both cases are too quick
considering the gradual pace leading to
Pinky's first change. 1 know why Pinky
doesn't go to get the doctor during Willie's
labor, and I understand the motif of rebirth
the moving water, Pinky's parents making
love in her bed, W illie's spiritual rebirth after
the trauma of having a stillborn child. But I
have to say that 3 Women is more a work of
imagination than of intelligence. Altman
certainly knows how to use the medium and
Chuck Rosher's photography lends just the
right air of unreality to the film. But I don't
think Altman is quite sure what he is trying
to grasp, lngmar Berman, in his Persona (to
which 3 Women is compared frequently,
doesn't resolve what he was trying to impart,
but you see that he tries to wrench some
complex idea from within himself. Altman
isn't qijite so internal the last ten minutes
seem rushed, as if he can't decide how to
resolve the women's relationships.
And what of the women? Are we meant to
see them as archetypes or as three facets of
the same person? 1 hope the latter, even
though that is not too original an idea. The
former seems impossible, not because you
can't believe the women as human beings,
but because they are not your ordinary
people. They're a bit too eccentric for us to
identify with that closely. Nevertheless,
Altman has gotten superb performances.
Sissy Spacek has mastered the art of
conveying naivete and then doing a complete
turnaround. Janice Rule has few lines, but
the enigmatic, worldly beauty in her face
shows us more in itself than all the gifts in
many other actresses. Shelley Duvall equals
Spacek with her finest performance yet
her graceful presence coming forth even
under obstinate circumstances. Even with its
shortcomings, 3 Women should not be
missed. It is rare when a director can provide
a stylized vision of people and their
surroundings and hold us transfixed.
Altman may not always be successful, but he
is truly original.
HAIR GRAPHICS
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BJ2clhi(ofla!
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