So... I decided, because I'm a glutton for punishment, to do a review on each Disney Live-Action Remake, and now I'm forced to watch each an every one of them. As of now, I have to go through Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland, which I am not looking forward to, but that gave me the urge to check out another take on the Alice in Wonderland story, one that is also from the mind of an animator known for the dark and the disturbing, only this one is actually dark and disturbing. Jan Švankmajer is a Czech animator, mostly known for his short films such as The Last Trick and one of my favourites, Dimensions of Dialogue. His work has influenced multiple others from The Brothers Quay to Phil Lord and Christopher Miller. He works mostly in stop motion, but he also incorporates live actors, puppets and cutout animation in his work, and his work is... something else. If you like surrealistic, dark and abstract animation, Jan Švankmajer's short films come with a recommendation from myself. In 1988, he tried his hand at making a feature film, titled "Alice", or "Something from Alice", and it is... fascinating.
This review is going to be a bit different, because this is just such a unique piece, it kind of defies traditional analysis, not to say it is a wholly untraditional film, it still follows the basic story of Alice in Wonderland, but rather than Alice dozing off in the field and seeing a rabbit outside, a taxidermy rabbit comes to life in her room, in fact there's a lot of things like that. The caterpillar for example is a sock with eyes and teeth, and the lizard Bill appears more like a taxidermized reptile with a different animals skull. The rest of the movie is very grungy, dirty and rusted, and all kinds of random things are used as puppets, including cutouts, skulls and raw meat. Yeah if you're absolutely terrified of stop motion animation already, you may want to stay away from this movie because it will make your fear a lot worse. Even Alice sometimes looks absolutely afraid of some of the things in this movie.
Speaking of which, Alice is played by Kristýna Kohoutová, and she does a pretty good job. She looks genuinely curious and weirded out at points. I mention this because, she is the only person in this entire movie that speaks, it's like she's reading the story as we're watching what is going on, which leads to the fascinating choice of having most of this movie be silent. Dialogue only comes in when it is important, and for the most part we have to infer what Alice is thinking, which becomes more interesting when she's in doll form, yes, for a good chunk of the movie, Alice is a live actor interacting with all these puppets, and other objects. They almost never show her in the same shot as the puppets, so this isn't like King Kong or Jason and the Argonauts, but I still believe that everything is in the same room, thanks to the directing and editing.
However, I can see someone having an issue with the editing, as the film is rather slow-paced, and there are some weird editing choices, like whenever Kristýna narrates a character's dialogue, when the dialogue is being said we see the character, but when she says "Said the character", it shows a close-up of her mouth, which I swear zooms in closer and closer as the movie goes on. It is also very Jan Švankmajer in the editing, which is difficult to describe, but if you're familiar with his work, you already have kind of a feel for how his films are edited. If you aren't a fan of his style of films you may not like this one all that much. You may also not like the background music, because there is none. You just hear an almost endless ticking sound, and that is the closest thing to background music you get. I quite enjoy the lack of background music, it lends itself to the eerie and uncomfortable atmosphere, which I think is intentional, since many of the films by Jan Švankmajer have that very eerie, odd and uncomfortable atmosphere to them.
Jan Švankmajer's Alice is a really odd movie, but it's just so fascinating that I had to talk about it. I really did like it, it's one of those movies like Raggedy Ann and Andy or Felidae where I really don't think I've ever seen something like it before, and don't think I'll see anything like it anytime soon. However, like those movies that does come with the caveat that... I'm not really sure how to recommend it. On the one hand, if you love animation, this is a must see, I found a version on YouTube with a translation in the closed captions, so if you want to check it out, that is probably your best bet, since I've heard that Jan Švankmajer's work is hard to find if you're not in Europe. That being said, this is not really a movie I would recommend it casual movie goers or anyone who isn't really familiar with the animator's previous work. If what I said interests you, I'd recommend checking out some of the short films first, and if you liked them, then I'd recommend this movie. Honestly, this movie is truly fascinating, and I do think that if you're an animation fan it is worth check out at least once. This is another case where I'm giving the movie a Slight Recommendation, but you should not take that as this film not being any good, it's just for a more specific audience.
No comments:
Post a Comment