Smartorhypo Highly Overrated But Still Good

Supelice Dreadfully Boring

Solidrariol Am I Missing Something?

Marva-nova Amazing worth wacthing. So good. Biased but well made with many good points.

jblum315-733-998513 If we remember that Lewis Carroll(Charles Dodgson)was a pedophile, it adds another dimension to his book and to this movie. He was obsessed with little girls. He borrowed them from their mothers who probably did not know that he was taking photographs of them nearly nude. If literary Alice's childhood featured sexual abuse, it would explain s great deal about her nightmares. Victorian children were severely repressed, required to be seen but not heard. Alice in the movie is in effect a life-size doll who goes from being normal size to tiny and then to very large. But becoming larger does not bestow on Alice any power to control the bizarre events in her dream. Except for demolishing poor Bill the lizard (phallic symbol), she is helpless until the very end when she wakes up before the Red Queen can cut off her head. In the book at the very end Alice says defiantly to the royal court, "You're nothing but a pack of cards!"

kurosawakira Švankmajer's "Neco z Alenky" (1988) is a wonderful celebration of imagination, of which Carrol's Alice stories are prime examples. There are times when the film might seem like a meandering sequence of events without clear climaxes, but then again this is at its best intentionally used to great effect: we are drained of many dramatic means, including music, and ironically the opening shot of the "hot day" is the most romantic and idyllic image in the film. Perhaps I should count the introductory exposition of Alice's room into this as well, so beautifully the light dwells on her face. Usually the fantasy world is the one with all the colour and fireworks. What then follows is a kind of reverse "Caligari" (1920), since what we see is not shaped by what will be revealed towards the end but what has been shown already in the beginning. The final scene when Alice wakes up, observing the room, underlines this very point.Many have lauded the film's ability and skill in defamiliarization, creating thus an atmosphere that very much takes us into the mind of a child, where even the most domestic and thus familiar object may regain a new life, strange and peculiar.There is a beautiful Blu-ray edition of the film released by the British Film Institute. It has, besides a lovely transfer, the most amazing set of extras one might think for Alice: the two "Stille Nacht" films inspired by Alice, made by Stephen and Timothy Quay.

Raoul Duke So I watched an art film called Alice, this "film" is a cult favorite of sort among art types. It came out in 1988 and was made by surreal artist Jan Skankmajer. So was this a good movie well no, but it is an interesting art film. Apparently great film makers like Tim Burton developed some of their early animation styles based on his work. In that sense it was very interesting, however though it was an interesting take on the classic "Alice in Wonderland" it was not good story telling. This is after all a great story this artist is interpreting. Why not actually incorporate the story with its beautiful dialog acted, and not read in sporadic bursts and as blind monologue. Additionally, the film had some very unintentionally disturbing images, especially the march hare. So should you watch this, if you are a huge fan of Tim Burton, or Michelle Gondry, or an art freak, maybe you will like it after all art is about individual interpretation, but as an easily watchable movie for most people including intellectual types, no you can definitely skip this one. if you like concise reviews of interesting films please read my other reviews at http://raouldukeatthemovies.blogspot.com/

TheSteelHelmetReturns In the initial minutes of Jan Svankmajer's Alice one assume they're installed for a minimal and meta 4:3 version of the classic Alice through the Looking Glass story shot on video. There is very little dialogue and when the spoken word does appear it's mostly from a close up of a girl's lips narrating the story. The quality and texture of the stop motion animation is of a Gumby standard and the entrance to the Wonderland is as minimal as the on screen action. I wonder if the film is simply misconstrued as being intentionally surrealistic (Milos Forman said this film was Disney + Bunuel on the DVD cover.) when Svankmaker could have wanted to make a more elaborate version of Alice and was simply forced to adopt a minimalist style due to the technological and budgetary limitations. The film spends its first forty minutes working out the animosity between Alice and the White Rabbit. I imagine children will enjoy these sequences if their attention span can handle the silent art film pacing. Alice actually enters into the Wonderland around an hour into the film itself and it's at this point where the film deviates from the original story to indulge in Kafka-esquire surrealism with cockroaches and sock worms and other bizarre interests of the film maker. Watching the segment with the Mad Hatter and the March Hare I start to feel that I would have appreciated this film more if I were an adolescent - I fail to see much groundbreaking about this rendition of the Lewis Carroll story as it is still targeted and tailored towards those in their teenage years. There's a curiosity in seeing how the film will adopt the other Wonderland characters in this minimalist DIY style but very little outside of this interest will lure the viewer into watching this film often.