About five years ago, when I had just graduated from high school, a friend of mine who had been to college introduced me to the works of Jan Svankmajer. He had checked out a VHS copy of three short films, Darkness/Light/Darkness, Male Games, and The Death of Stalinism in Bohemia. All three of them were works of great genius, and I immediately stored Svankmajer's name in my vault. So it's sad that it took me all five of these years to see another one of his works. I had thought about buying his Faust back when DVDs were dirt-cheap (do you remember those happy days?),but had passed over it for something else. Now I finally found another one of his films, Alice, this one a feature, his adaptation of Lewis Carrol's Alice's Adventures of Wonderland. And, wow, this is one frightening little film, a mix of live-action (well, one little girl) and stop-motion animation of characters like the White Rabbit, the Mad Hatter, and the Queen of Hearts. Stop-motion animation has always looked creepy, and Sankmajer knows it. He also knows that dead animals are scary, and he incorporates their bones into his animation. It makes the whole film more visceral and surreal.

There are two parts of this film that deserve particular attention. 1) the soundtrack. There is no musical score, and the only music at all is the tiny piece that plays over the closing credits. No, by soundtrack I am referring to the sound effects, and they are absolutely amazing. 2) the setting.The original novel and the Disney film set the story in a bizarre forest. Sankmajer sets the story in a delapidated house, with rotting and filthy wooden beams everywhere, creaky doors, and old cabinets. The setting is what makes the film particularly creepy.

As for standout scenes, the caterpillar is pretty awesome. The very best scene, though, is definitely the tea party, with the Mad Hatter and March Hare. Svankmajer's conception of those two characters and of the tea party is truly inspired, and ranks among the best scenes in cinema, in my opinion.

So is it perfect? No. The idea to have Alice speak all the lines, and then show her lips speaking such words as: "The Mad Hatter said" every two minutes grows annoying quickly, and the film would perhaps have been a masterpiece had this flaw been avoided. It seems to be in there for adding time, and it's truly unfortunate. I also wish that Svankmajer would have hurried up the beginning of the film, so as to get to other great scenes in the novel. It takes a half hour before Alice gets into Wonderland, and that's the only time the film grows boring. Whatever. This is still a great film. 9/10.

Aha! We've all seen Disney's animated feature and Tim Burton's live-action feature, but you can't truly say that you've seen a movie version of "Alice in Wonderland" until you've seen Jan Švankmajer's "Něco z Alenky". The animals are of course stop-motion (including a carriage that has a literal skeleton crew). Wonderland is not an enchanted forest, but what appears to be a derelict apartment building. Basically, it's a much darker interpretation of the story than we're used to. After all, Lewis Carroll's original story had nothing to do with cuteness.

Whatever the case, I've liked every Švankmajer work that I've seen, both his shorts and his feature films. Their sheer surrealism serves to remind us of a very important fact: animation is simply another type of filmmaking. It doesn't have to be "family-friendly". And believe you me, what you have in these movies is more like what you find in a Terry Gilliam movie! I recommend starting with Švankmajer's shorts before watching one of his features. Even so, you're sure to like either one. Another feature is "Little Otik", based on a Czech folk tale.

I agree with the other reviewers who said this was an incredibly creepy and disturbing film--one you should NOT let younger viewers see. Instead of the cute animated Alice like you may have seen in Disney's ALICE IN WONDERLAND, this one uses stop-motion for animation AND the characters are very, very weird.

The White Rabbit begins the film as a stuffed dead rabbit in a display case. Suddenly, it tears itself free and begins running about--as old sawdust (what they stuffed old anatomical specimens with in the old days) comes pouring out during the course of the film. If that isn't enough, later malevolent skeletal animals with bizarre bodies and horrible bug-eyes appeared and began attacking her--and it isn't surprising that Alice is afraid--heck, I was feeling a bit afraid! Other demonic-like images appear--amazingly weird playing cards as well as the decapitation of the March Hare and Mad Hatter!! In many ways, this film looked inspired by the 16th century Dutch painter, Bosch--who was famous for paintings of Hell--complete with demons and creatures much like you'd see in this film.

While in general the stop-motion animation is rather jerky and poor, the imagery and weirdness make it very watchable---plus I love the imaginative sets that make up for the cheesy movement. However, one thing I could not get used to and hated was the way the little girl narrated and always said phrases like "...said the White Rabbit" or whatever creature she was narrating for in the film as well as closeups of her lips as she said it. It was highly repetitive and combined with the fact that the film was dubbed and not subtitled (which I greatly prefer),it was not needed and distracted the viewer. In fact, the girl was the voice for EVERY character--a poor decision in retrospect.

Overall, you've gotta respect this film for being so different and for taking so long to make. However, it's super-creepy and not particularly pleasant, so you be the judge as to whether or not to take a chance with this mondo-bizarro flick.