The Maze-Like Feeling of the Palace

The film has a lot of interesting images and ideas about cycles without necessarily having like circular images in it. The fisheye lenses as you point out Alex create this sort of maze-like or sort of trapped claustrophobic feeling where you can see the ceiling but there's no apparent exit most of the time. When we first meet everybody they're talking about the war by the end of the movie they're still talking about the same war. All the characters really feel like they're kind of trapped like playing this game that none of them really understand how to win or what the game is.