{"id":550,"date":"2010-05-03T10:00:20","date_gmt":"2010-05-03T17:00:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/?p=550"},"modified":"2012-01-09T13:06:08","modified_gmt":"2012-01-09T21:06:08","slug":"vault-alice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/vault-alice\/","title":{"rendered":"One from The Vault: ‘Alice’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Imagine ‘Alice in Wonderland’ without all that Walt Disney whimsy.\u00a0 Instead, replace that whimsy with despair, the bright colors with different shades of brown and grey, and the funny and frantic animated White Rabbit with the motion captured movements of a stuffed one.\u00a0 That’s Jan Svankmajer’s ‘Alice.’<\/p>\n

<\/h6>\n

Lewis Carroll’s stories of Alice have inspired a seemingly endless stream of film adaptations.\u00a0 ‘Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland’ along with the sequel ‘Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There’ are familiar to both children and adults in their many forms.<\/p>\n

From the first direct interpretation in 1903 to the recent ‘Alice’-themed film by Tim Burton, the story, the characters, and the world itself have all changed dramatically.\u00a0 Some movies attempt to maintain the integrity of the books, while others make changes.\u00a0 Out of all of these, there has never been a version quite like Jan Svankmajer’s.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>‘Alice’ is a Czech film, originally released in 1988.\u00a0 Svankmajer uses a combination of live action footage and stop motion animation to create his surrealist work.\u00a0 The only human that appears in the film is the Kristyna Kohoutova, who plays the character of Alice.\u00a0 In the English version of the film, her voice is provided by Camilla Power.<\/p>\n

Without exaggeration, ‘Alice’ is one of the strangest films I’ve ever seen.\u00a0 It’s a surrealist’s take on a story of literary nonsense, and both styles show through strongly.\u00a0 It’s also one of those rare films that I actually get uncomfortable watching.<\/p>\n

From the start, ‘Alice’ is decidedly different than the original story.\u00a0 Rather than the somewhat whimsical beginnings of the Carroll version, Svankmajer’s film starts darkly, and ominously.\u00a0 In fact, much of the film takes the already bizarre elements of the book and makes them threatening.<\/p>\n

The film begins with an introduction from Alice and then jumps into a dark room full of preserved beetles, dead flies, animal skulls and at least one genuinely terrifying doll.\u00a0 Alice is passing the time \u2013 playing would be too strong a word, since she never does seem to smile \u2013 by tossing stones into a teacup when a stuffed rabbit begins to move.<\/p>\n

The rabbit frees himself from the confines of the glass display he’s been placed in and dresses himself before heading off.\u00a0 Alice follows him, and the story goes in the usual direction from there.\u00a0 Alice follows, and ends up in a strange new place.<\/p>\n

One of the most interesting things about the Svankmajer ‘Alice’ is that the point at which Alice crosses into Wonderland isn’t defined.\u00a0 Most adaptations make it a very clear and dramatic change, with an obvious visual difference between Wonderland and the real world.\u00a0 ‘Alice’ doesn’t do that, and the viewer is left to wonder whether the normal world and the fantasy world are one in the same.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>‘Alice’ is a fairly disturbing film, though it may not be immediately evident why.\u00a0 The White Rabbit is constantly restuffing himself, but so is the Scarecrow in ‘The Wizard of Oz.’ There are living animal skeletons with glass eyes and the horrifying sock with dentures that is the caterpillar,\u00a0 but that’s not too far out, especially considering how calmly I can accept the intense gore in a film like ‘Saw.’<\/p>\n

Where Svankmajer really succeeds in creating his unsettling imagery is in the subtleties.\u00a0 Everything is dirty, for a start.\u00a0 The White Rabbit’s fine clothes aren’t exempt; they’re grimy and look old and ignored.\u00a0 At the Mad Hatter’s tea party, every cup looks like it’s been used over and over again without being washed.<\/p>\n

The sound also contributes to the off-putting nature of the film.\u00a0 There’s no music, for starters, and the only voice is that of Alice.\u00a0 The sound effects are often exaggerated too.\u00a0 Doors squeak loudly when opened, food and drink make very distinct noises when consumed, and footsteps ring out with clarity.\u00a0 But most upsetting of all, there’s the sound of the White Rabbit’s bones creaking as he moves and talks.<\/p>\n

No other version of the Alice story captures the nightmarish feel that Svakmajer’s film does.\u00a0 It’s confusing and frightening, but part of what makes it so effective is that, from a certain standpoint, ‘Alice’ is strongly rooted in reality.\u00a0 Everything in the film is, or is made of, recognizable objects.\u00a0 A bed frame with bird feet on it may not be something you’ve seen before, but the ingredients are easily recognizable.<\/p>\n

‘Alice’ isn’t presented on Netflix in high definition, but you won’t find it in HD anywhere else either.\u00a0 It’s presented in the original 4:3 aspect ratio and with stereo sound. \u00a0The video quality could be better, but the DVD looks roughly the same and won’t be found for less than $15.\u00a0 A Blu-ray version at this point seems unlikely.<\/p>\n

If you’ve never seen the works of Jan Svankmajer, ‘Alice,’ his first feature length film, is a good place to start.\u00a0 He has one more film available to stream on Netflix called ‘Littl\"\"<\/a>e Otik,’ which is just as strange, and another great example of his style.<\/p>\n

Now you will see a film made for children
\nPerhaps
\nBut I nearly forgot
\nYou must close your eyes
\nOtherwise you won’t see anything<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Catalog titles are still playing catch-up on Blu-ray, and out of print DVDs are getting hard to find. Luckily, there’s Netflix. “One From the Vault” is a recurring feature exploring the wide selection of movies that the Netflix Instant Streaming service has to offer that are out of print, unavailable, or just hard to find in other formats.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Imagine ‘Alice in Wonderland’ without all that Walt Disney whimsy.\u00a0 Instead, replace that whimsy with despair, the bright colors with different shades of brown and grey, and the funny and frantic animated White Rabbit with the motion captured movements of a stuffed one.\u00a0 That’s Jan Svankmajer’s ‘Alice.’<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":563,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[135,142],"tags":[197,238,25,88,4433],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/550"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=550"}],"version-history":[{"count":21,"href":"https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/550\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28235,"href":"https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/550\/revisions\/28235"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/563"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=550"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=550"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=550"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}