critique-second writing assignment

For my critique I choose an interpretation of Alice In Wonderland, called Alice, by Jan Svankmajer.  Alice is played by a real person, and the rest of the characters are animated through stop motion.  There is very little dialouge, and when the other characters speak, the words are said through Alice's mouth.  There are a lot of exaggerated sound effects, involving creaking doors and drawers, the loud clanking of the rabbits teeth, and the sounds of thing falling, crashing and braking.

The original book was filled with different meanings to the author.  Some of the characters were meant to be making fun of specific people, or specific attitudes of people of that time period when it was created.  This version, however doesn't seem to be a specific comment on anything, but rather an exploration into the surreal aspects of the story.  Towards the beginning of the story, Alice tells the audience to close their eyes, otherwise they wont see anything.  The artist tried to convey a darker, scarier side to the story as well.

The characters and scenes in the film are made to made to emphasize the dark and creepy theme of the film.  When Alice changes sizes she turns into a porcelain antique doll.  The white rabbit is played by a taxidermy rabbit, who, at the beginning of the film is in a glass display box.  Throughout the movie he leaks sawdust, and whenever he sees Alice he responds to her by clicking his teeth at her.  The Caterpillar is played by a sock with human dentures, and the march hair is a wind up toy that moves around on a wheelchair.  Most of the minor characters are played by skeletons of small animals and reptiles.  The chesire cat is missing, but with so much going on in the movie it is hardly noticable.  

There are also reacuring themes which help to emphasize the dark mood of the film.  There is a constant theme of danger, mostly from sharp objects.  Alice enters the rabbit hole through a drawer, but when she first puts her hand in the drawer she cuts herself on a compas.  While alice is going down the rabbit hole, she notices and picks up a jar of jam.  When she scoops some of the jam out with her finger, she notices that it has nails in it.  There is also the continual use of knives and rusty scissors throughout the film.  When Alice tries to grap the rabbit in one scene, it hits her on the hand with the rusty pair os scissors that it seems to cary through a large part of the film.

There is also a theme of death and decrepedation.  The house that Alice wanders through for most of the film is old and falling apart.  The wallpaper looks stained and is peeling, and anything metal in the house can be gauranteed to be full of rust.  All of the doors squeak as if the house has been deserted for many years.  As Alice is going down the rabbit hole, she notices shelves full of thing in jars.  Most of the thing are undistinguishable, but when the light shines on them they seem to be different creatures, dead and preserved in liquid.  There are stuffed animals and skeletal structures on the shelves as well.

Most of the characters seem to be either dead, falling apart, or both.  The white rabbit has a hole in his stomach, and is constantly loosing his stuffing.  The characters that are just skeletons are missing a few limbs, and the characters that play the mad hatter and march hare are very old, grungy looking toys. 

   The world that Alice stepped into looks like one filled with thing left behind from another life.  There is furniture, utensils, food in pots and cans and all of the dead creatures stuffed and left in jars.  The animals and reptiles also seems as if they could have been pets that were left behind.  They have obviously died, but now seem to control the household.  

The story has a specific beginning and ending, but the scenes that happen in between can be almost interchangeable.  The scenes where Alice meets with the catepillar, the madhatter, the pig baby do not depend on the scenes before of after them, so they do not really make a sequence.  The story is narrated by Alice, but she only narrates dialouge.  This is shown by a close up of her mouth saying things like "said the white rabbit", or "Alice thought to herself".  The timing of the images and the sounds match up well, which hard to do for stop motion (especially dialouge).

The piece definately suceededs in getting my attention, although I feel like it gets a little slow towards the end.  I felt like the madhatter was a bit flat, both in the design of the character and the characters personality.  I also thought that making the queen a card seemed a little too obvious.  Her personality seems a little flat too, mostly to the fact that all she says is off with her head.  I also wish the scenes connected to each other more, instead of being completely random.  The only way that they seem connected is by the white rabbit and the fact that they are all in the same house.  

I feel like it did work in trying to be surreal and dark.  The nails, scissors, thing in jars, and characters made the film feel a bit disturbing.  I think this feeling is lost a little towards the end, but overall I liked the piece.