Bloodtype Online

 
    We all know Alice in Wonderland.  Hopefully by now, we have learned that it's a truly messed up children's story.  If not, it's time to realize that this story is supposed to be even more messed up than you seem to think.  Alice in Wonderland is not the stuff of cutesy cartoons.  Czech director Jan Svankmajer's Alice, in all of its bizarre glory, is closer to what this story is supposed to be--creepy, freaky, and deeply unsettling.  I'm not even going to attempt to debate literary theory and symbolism (yawn), but I will throw in how Grace Slick has a great voice. All I'm saying is, there's something off about getting bigger and smaller through ingesting substances, chasing after anthropomorphic animals, speaking in riddles etc.

     Svankmajer's stop-motion animation of Lewis Carroll's over-analyzed story is amazing.  It flies by pretty quickly (it's not quite an hour and a half long), but it is visually arresting in practically every frame.  Alice sneaks after a white rabbit preserved through taxidermy, who is constantly losing his stuffing.  Crawling about and shoving herself into desk drawers, she wanders through a world of bugs, sawdust, specimen jars, and tiny little doors. 

     Liquids and tarts adjust her size so she can explore a crumbling, dingy world of long hallways, steep stone stairs, an elevator that drifts past jars and jars of unknown creatures, and many rooms filled with oddities I can't even explain.  (Why does a skeletal fish have two eggs in its rib cage?)  This retelling has completely mobile meat, snakey socks that slither through holes in the floor, skulls which hatch from eggs, a rat that sets up camp in Alice's hair, and buttered watch goodness.  Freakish circus sideshow animals attack Alice and playing cards try to decapitate her.  But, I almost forgot, you have to close your eyes or you won't see anything.

***

Jennie Milojevic