Alice (1988).

Review #1729: Alice.

Cast: 

Kristýna Kohoutová (Alice) Directed by Jan Švankmajer.

Review: 

"Animators tend to construct a closed world for themselves, like pigeon fanciers or rabbit breeders. I never call myself an animated filmmaker because I am interested not in animation techniques or creating a complete illusion, but in bringing life to everyday objects."

Truly, the time has come to introduce a bit of fresh perspective within filmmaking and animation, particularly with a man described by one of his Czech peers as "Disney plus Buñuel equals Švankmajer." Jan Švankmajer was born in Prague, Czechoslovakia in 1934; as a boy he had a small puppet theatre at home (which was quite common in the country), and he has stated that in a sense everything he does is essentially a puppet play. He studied at the School of Applied Arts in Prague from 1950 to 1954 before going to the Academy of the Performing Arts in the puppetry department; he also worked with a marionette theatre in the city that helped develop an interest in film. He would make his first film with The Last Trick (1964), a 12 minute short. Over a handful of shorts, he would continue to experiment with puppets, animation, and the avant-garde that have made him a distinct presence in filmmaking with the amount of things featured in his projects that can go from people to puppets to using sawdust. By the time Švankmajer retired from filmmaking in 2018, he had directed seven feature films, with Insects (2018) being his last effort. As one might already know, this is an adaptation of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, which was written in 1865 by Lewis Carroll. It was after he had done his short films Jabberwocky and Down to the Cellar that he dared to do a feature film, since he was thinking about it for quite some time while recognizing it as one of the most seminal works of civilization. One key thing to note is his vision of adapting the work as a dream, since he felt that was how Carroll wrote it; he felt that others who had made adaptations prior (and after) had presented it as a fairy tale, for which there was a fundamental difference (i.e. one has a moral and the other is the expression of the unconscious). This was a co-production between the countries of Czechoslovakia, Switzerland, United Kingdom, and West Germany.

He has favored animation as a way to give life to the inanimate, and one certainly can see this present with a movie with only one human presence in an oppressive and involving work. This is quite the astonishing adventure of curiosity, one that is excellent in its handling of animation that tells a classic story (that I'm sure we all know and have read before) in a refreshing and captivating manner. The interesting thing is to consider that this is the first and only film to feature Kristyna Kohoutova (dubbed by Camilla Power in the English-language version), and there aren't too many movies with just one presence that look like this one. She is the only voice we hear through the film, and we see and hear the story through her eyes in the proper dream format that the director wanted to do without feeling inauthentic. One just has to close their eyes and enjoy what they see, whether that involves taxidermized rabbits (complete with sawdust coming out of it) or china doll versions of oneself, and so on - the story is what you know from the novel without being a slave to it. The movie is a visual curiosity and testament for what a filmmaker can do in ingenuity, doing more with creating a creeping atmosphere with amoral dream-making than most directors try to do with supposedly more advanced graphics and techniques, and it also happens in a film that doesn't drown itself out in incessant noise or cliches. One can see for themselves what it means as a whole in its ending without loss of curiosity, because one is proud of the result generated on screen in the dream. It is a dark movie that I would recommend for all folks who are interested in fresh perspectives within animation and storytelling, where one can do plenty with a bit of organic curiosity to make a dream more than just a dream and all folks can get into what it reaches to say without having their hand held to get there or losing patience. I would say that makes this a most successful classic and one that merits recommendation for all to view within the lens of animation and world cinema.

Next Time: Bring on October, bring on the month that horror folks know and love. 

Overall, I give it 10 out of 10 stars.