:
Anne-Marie Mallik,
Wilfrid Brambell,
Mark Allington,
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Jonathan Miller
see all cast/crew...
: Not Rated
: Home Vision Entertainment
: Foreign, Fantasy, UK
: 72 min.
: English
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A subversive and haunting retelling of the classic children's story featuring legendary actors Sir Michael Redgrave, Sir John Gielgud, Leo McKern, and satirists Peter Sellers, Peter Cook, and Alan Bennett. This surreal masterpiece was filmed for the BBC by stage and screen director Jonathan Miller. Miller's Victorian Gothic version of "Alice in Wonderland" captures the menacing undertones of Lewis Carroll's story while poking fun at middle-class England.
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| Caution advised
by MBreslau
April 1, 2011 - 5:44 AM PDT
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If you have trouble falling asleep, this is the film for you.
If you can talk without moving your lips (as Alice can), this is for you
If you never read Lewis Carroll and are high on a recreational drug, you might like this.
Alice runs the complete emotional gamut from sullen and impassive to sullen and impassive. She makes Spock look emotional!
There are plenty of more enjoyable Alice in Wonderland films to choose from. |
| A Darker Alice
by Saroz
February 3, 2004 - 10:56 PM PST
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6 out of 7 members found this review helpful
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This release of BBC-TV's 1966 black-and-white Alice in Wonderland is very fine indeed. The film is a surreal, theatrical, and dark Alice, designed as a dream version of Victorian life - there are no animal costumes here. The caucus race is a scene in a public school, the Caterpillar is a sort of headmaster, the trial is a massive church setting, and so on. Alice herself is almost completely impassive, and rarely speaks aloud; I found myself interpreting the whole thing as an autistic girl's skewed and nonsensical view of the world around her. Despite its short length, the film takes its time, and has a very dry sense of humor; I found it endlessly fascinating once I got into it, though. It's almost hypnotic - something greatly helped by Ravi Shankar's sitar music.
The picture quality is excellent, and very unusual for British TV of this period. Director Jonathan Miller personally contributes an excellent commentary track, discussing the film's themes, his actors, and why he felt a darker Alice needed to be made. The disc is rounded out with a short picture gallery, and a real surprise: the first-ever Alice film, a 10-minute silent from 1903, with commentary. Really my only complaint is the lack of subtitles for the feature film; Alice's own dialogue is frequently whispered, and to the casual ear can be hard to decipher. Otherwise, this is a great film with an excellent DVD presentation that demonstrates quality over quantity. It comes very highly recommended. |
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GreenCine Member Rating
(Average 6.60)
30 Votes
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