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This disk contains two features. "Darkness, Light, Darkness" is a claymation short, and very odd. The main feature, "Alice", combines live action with stop-animation and is even more peculiar. I like both, even though I'm not wholly sure what to make of either.
DLD is all staged in a small room. A person arrives, over the course of the piece, one body part at a time. A hand comes first, then eyes, another hand, the senses, body, and (very late) brain. The whole person is built up from the parts as they arrive and is finally completed - within the room, trapped by doors and windows much too small to allow it to escape.
"Alice" is the most memorable Alice in Wonderland that I've seen. It features only one living actor. She's a young girl, maybe eight years old - a brilliant piece of casting and brilliant in simply being herself. She wears a pretty pink dress and a serious expression throughout. She also wears her smudges and snarls unselfconciously, tends to throw stones, and never shies from the violence implicit in Lewis Carroll's original story.
Svankmajer wanders back and forth across Carroll's story, intersecting at many points. Whether inside Carroll's script or out, Svankmajer aways presents his own vision, one that tends towards the macabre. The White Rabbit is a taxidermy specimen, often leaking sawdust and often licking it back up again. Instead of a mirror, Alice walks through a drawer in a drafting table - the artist's "mirror" on his world - and walks through others at many transitions.
Maybe half the movie is stop-motion animation, but the distinctions are not alway clear. Like Harryhausen, Svankmajer often combines model animation with the real girl. Going beyond Harryhausen, he uses the girl as animation material - the cook-fire on her head being the clearest example. The animation itself tends to be jerky, but very expressive. The caterpillar, for example, is a sock-puppet on a sewing form. When his part is over, he shuts his heyes and goes to sleep. The difference, though, is that his eyes are shut for him, sewn shut by darning needles.
There is remarkably little use of voice, except for a few points where the girl acts as a puppet-like narrator. Only the trial near the end uses much conversation, and that owes more to Kafka ("Say what you're supposed to say," said The King) than to Carroll.
It's good. Strange, but very good.
//wiredweird
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DVD Damaged
I had trouble photographing it, but it showed up sort of loose in the DVD case and got damaged as a result. I wanted to leave a review case this might’ve happened to anyone else.
Top reviews from other countries
- spiderfriendReviewed in Canada on August 15, 2024
Neco z Alenky or, Jan Svankmajer' Alice
- DRock 181Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 16, 2024
A seldom seen but amazing version of the classic story
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MADReviewed in Spain on May 8, 2023
Tan perturbadora como hechizante
De siempre me ha fascinado la técnica de stop motion y guardo un imborrable recuerdo de las criaturas de aquellas películas de Simbad que cobraron vida gracias al maestro Ray Harryhausen. Esta versión de Alice hace gala de una estética tan perturbadora como hechizante, lo que unido a su animación, hizo que me enamorara de ella. Nunca he visto esta película con voces en español, sí con algún subtítulo integrado de forma amateur, pero quería tener original este film para conservarlo y solo pude dar con esta edición que trae voces en versión original y subtítulos en inglés. Los diálogos no tienen el peso que podrían guardar en otro tipo de producciones, por lo que a poco que sepas de lengua inglesa, podrás comprender lo que se habla siguiendo los subtítulos.Tan perturbadora como hechizanteMAD
Reviewed in Spain on May 8, 2023
Finalmente, Alice viene presentada en una edición dual que incluye tanto DVD como Bluray y como extras cuenta con varios cortos.
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Alan GarciaReviewed in Mexico on December 13, 2018
Excelente remasterizacion de video pero sin extras
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A-MarieReviewed in France on June 23, 2018
Troublant et original, tout sauf gnan-gnan
