Kurt's home again, so I could finally go to see Alice. I will not say I have always loved Alice because I haven't, but I have read Alice a kajillion times because it was the only book I had that was as weird and inscrutable as the Bible. I thought if I could make sense of Alice, I could make sense of anything. It is the inscrutable character of Alice that seems missing in this beautiful film. For me the transitions in the book were always weak like badly applied staples. You barely knew how you got from here to there. This Alice has a series of comparatively strong bonds that march along, and not just the hares. A less predictable score would have been nice too. Visually, this movie is Alice. Auditoraly, it could be any film, which is a shame given the uniqueness of this piece of literature.
I honestly prefer the Alice from the SyFy channel. Short on mass market appeal, it does a grand job of using Alice to stir up thinking about the great ideas and experiences of life. Every moment was packed with larger idea enshrined in an engaging narrative. It is not a version of Alice in Wonderland so much as it is clay wrapped around the literary armature wire. Visually it is beautiful. I intend to purchase it for my home library.
Disney's classic animated Alice snored on the Disney Channel frequently. It was always billed as one of their major features, but it was all vanilla sweetness. Faults didn't matter though as we could only enjoy films at home either on TV or after the invention of VHS on tape. Whatever was on was watched. I wouldn't want to watch it again. The only thing I liked was the Cheshire Cat
. He is nearly impossible to mess up.
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