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Alice [VHS] 
Actors : Kristýna Kohoutová, Camilla Power
Director : Jan Svankmajer
Studio : First Run Features
by First Run Features
Release Date : 1996-06-25
Publisher : First Run Features
Availability : Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Number of Items : 1
EAN : 9786302540093
UPC : 720229907309
Avg. Customer Rating: (based on 75 reviews)
List Price : $19.95
Our Price : $20.99
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Mychildrensstore.co.uk.com essential video |
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This adaptation of Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland mixes animation and live action to create a dreamlike world, but don't let that fool you into thinking it's simply a kid's film. Young Alice (Kristyna Kohoutová, spoken by Camilla Power) watches a stuffed and mounted rabbit come to life in her playroom and follows it through a magical drawer into a strange world that resembles a 19th-century toy store come to life, with a few specimens from a natural history museum thrown in. Czech animator Jan Svankmajer retains the familiar story elements but tweaks them with bizarre imagery brought to herky-jerky life with his spasmodic style of stop-motion animation. The caterpillar becomes a sock puppet with dentures, while other crazy creatures materialize as creepy skull-headed beings that bleed sawdust. Throughout the tale Svankmajer returns to punctuating close-ups of Alice's lips telling the story, just to remind us that this is a tale told. In the best surrealist tradition Svankmajer uses familiar objects in unfamiliar ways, giving a fantasy quality to the banal (and the not so banal) while tipping the dream logic to the edge of nightmare. While the imagery remains more unsettling than genuinely disturbing, younger children will certainly be happier with Disney's brightly colored animated classic Alice in Wonderland. Older children and adults will better appreciate Svankmajer's sly visual wit and unusual animation style. --Sean Axmaker |
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Experimental movie, Alice explains that you must close your eyes to watch |
Interestingly stated as a movie that once was a book. Alice is by the Czechoslovakian director Jan Svankmajer, and according to IMDB, studied at the Institute of Industrial Arts and the Marionnette Faculty of the Prague Academy of Fine Arts. This film is a fine collection of bizarre puppets and other artistic objects. It is originaly acted by Kristýna Kohoutová (spoiler ahead) who is also sometimes played by a puppet. Many odd things occur and it is filmed with zeal and life.
The white rabbit is born from wood shavings. Giving himself spoonfulls of the hay, playing on a food theme that is prevalent in the novel. Alice is suddenly made to grow by eating, and as if to save her childhood, she devours some inky stuff to return. And the symbols of the stages of life are played by odd dolls. Sometimes unrecognizable from their novel inspirations. The White rabbit has terrifying teeth that look as though they could tear off flesh. He as a demonic look to him, yet, danger does not exhibit from his actions. Instead, I would say he is some powerless icon off time and its ridiculous effect on our lives.
Even more interesting is the unique, one-of-a-kind, expressive, way that went about narrating the story. It was refreshing, and certainly experimental in my views. I don't think I've seen a more expressive way, or a more suitable means of telling an odd childrens story. The artistic value of this movie really is worth noting.
I thought that I had seen every adaptation of Lewis Carroll's story, yet Alice woke me up to another, stranger version. The movie is like some college stage play with elements of neoFreudism. You watch in the dark, transfixed on acts that you sometimes cannot explain; that move along a story filled with symbols. In no better way can a movie as this be introduced, as when Alice explains "You must close your eyes so that you can see this movie."
My review of this movie is from Netflix. I do not own this film. All quotes are from the movie. |
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This Movie just Sucks |
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Read all reviews above. It is all true. There is only one character in the movie the rest of the characters are dead stuffed annimals/skeletons. It is nothing like what Lewis Carrol would like other people to see. The rabbit comes across as horrifying that reminds me of the scary movie with the puppet doll called chucky. The movie is slow and many of the important parts of the original movie are missing. This is not a charming movie. I am a photographer so I have been doing research because I am creating my own photo series using black and white film. I have a collection of Alice in Wonderland movies and this one so far is the worse. I thought that the movie sound track is way too loud and the only thing that talks through the movie is Alice. It is like Alice is telling the story. All wrong... Yes Alice talks to her self but does not narrate the story. I don't understand why anyone would put their effort into making this low budget film. If you really want to follow the original story you have to see "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" where Characters are played by Peter Sellers, Ducley Moor, Michael Crawford and Fionna Fullerton. Wonderful music composition. This is far the best. |
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Wow! what a show |
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One other review said this was so much like their dreams and truly I feel this version of Alice caught a whole dreamscape in which the common and uncommon can come to life in wonderful and frightening ways for example there is a scene in which Alice climbs inside the White Rabbit's house which is built with building blocks and appears to not be very big but suddenly the interiors of the house show more than there is outside. To me dreams are often gritty and not very clean and this whole movie reflected that as food often became something to be despised or just strange as Alice actually appears to eat wood at one point. This is actually more disturbing and strange than anything I have seen Tim Burton do, in fact Tim Burton's films seem to pale beside it. This film is fairly faithful to the classic story but characters like the Duchess and the Cheshire Cat are no where to be seen. I would have loved to have seen Svankmejor's version of the cheshire cat as I am sure it would have been equally strange. Either way I found this Alice entertaining but I would not show it to little children for it would be too scary for them. However older children and teenagers might find it interesting and it would be interesting to find out. |
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A Bizarre but Valid Perspective on "Alice" |
The "Alice" books by Lewis Carroll have always been about a young girl's dreamlike journey as she subconsciously comes to grips with the seemingly absurd rituals of language and behaviour in the adult world around her. In Wonderland these absurdities are magnified and personified in a series of bizarre encounters. Visionary surrealist director Jan Svankmajer has brought these characters vividly to life using the stop motion animation of bizarre objects from Alice's home that she walks among after descending into the nonsensical realm.
The films opening shows an Alice who is silent - but radiates boredom, frustration and confusion with the oppressive world around her. Sitting among her toys, crockery and a bizarre collection of taxidermy exhibits in the house, she watches a stuffed rabbit enliven and run into a draw - where she follows him to wonderland. She shrinks and grows - turning into her doll as she does so - is chased by animals that are live skeletons and taxidermy animals, watches the caterpillar build himself from a sock, some glass eyes and some false teeth, dines with the Mad Hatter and his crew - a puppet, a wind-up and a fur stole - and plays croquet with a group of playing card cut outs in a toy theatre.
The interpretation might not be for everyone, as it eschews the whimsy and poetry of the story to focus on the surreal and psychological elements. The effect is much scarier. It does howver, capture the episodic, disconnected story.
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Oh, my word!!!! |
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I can quite easily say that I have never seen anything like this.....no, that's not quite true. The whole thing looks vaguely familiar, I recognize it from the shadowy recesses of my childhood fears and dreams!! The whole time I was watching it, I was simultaneously saying, "This is the freakiest thing I have ever seen," and "This all feels like I have seen it once a long, long time ago". It is, without doubt,the most uniqe version of Alice in Wonderland ever and after seeing a couple of scenes from it I had to have it!! It will be too weird and dark for a lot of people but I LOVED it. You will like it if you like Tim Burton (although Tim Burton just WISHES he was this weird), Victorian scrapbooking, antique collecting, dream interpretation, animation techniques, child psychology, and on and on. It is the best film interpretation of childhood fears and dreams I have ever enountered and I think it is brilliant. Othes will just think it is weird and morbid. Children, however, are weird and morbid, so it fits. If you like weird movies at all, get this, you won't regret it! However, don't even think about letting kids watch it...can't even imagine the effect that would have! If you're only comfortable with mainstream movie fare, better pass this one by. |
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