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Alice (1988 Film)Alice is a 1988 surrealist film in Czech by Jan Svankmajer. It retells the classic Lewis Carroll stories (Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass). The film combines live action with stop motion animation. This retelling of the "Alice" story is continually ambiguous about whether or not Alice is in her real world, or when exactly she crosses over to the "Wonderland". Early in the film, Alice appears to be in her bedroom, when a stuffed rabbit display comes to life and breaks out of its cage. Alice follows it across a large field and through a desk, which leads to a cavern with a long elevator ride. "Wonderland" itself is a strange mix of a household-like area with very little concern for logical space or size. Its inhabitants tend to be strange mixtures of objects and dead animals, such as a bed with bird legs, or a stuffed lizard with glass eyes. Some characters from the original Alice's Adventures in Wonderland appear in similar original, creepy forms, such as a wind-up toy rabbit for the March Hare, or a sock with glass eyes for the Caterpillar. Similarly, several sequences from the original story, such as Alice's growing and shrinking via the consumption of unusual food and drink, or the scene in which a crying baby changes into a pig, are portrayed in original forms. For example, when Alice shrinks, she is transformed into a doll which looks fairly similar to her regular self. Scenes from Through the Looking Glass appear as well. The movie also contains a number of original sequences not related to the original novel. In one such sequence, Alice is trapped inside a doll-like shell and is locked in a food closet. She soon breaks free of the shell. When the movie ends, it is ambiguous whether everything that happened to Alice was indeed real, or if she is still dreaming. The visuals are often described as grotesque, perverse, or disturbing, but overall not repulsive. Prominent are a white rabbit constantly reaching inside his own chest and pulling out sawdust, and various morbidly animated skulls and slabs of raw meat products. As mentioned previously, many of the animated characters are made of surprising household objects. Scissors and knives are also recurring themes. The film also features a jarring device in which a close-up of Alice's lips appears to deliver narrative sentences like "said the White Rabbit". This occurs constantly throughout the picture and is considered by many both extremely irritating and indicative of some of Svankmajer's weaker didactic tendencies.
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