Alice in Manylands

   Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland may not necessarily have been entirely written for a child audience, but believing otherwise requires no leap of faith. Jan Švankmajer's 1989 adaptation Alice, on the other hand, is so disturbing, offsetting, and dingy that the late great Johnny Cochran would have a hell of a time convincing anyone that the glove of the movie would fit any hand other than that of the most mature adult audiences. The film casts Wonderland in a decrepit and decaying Czech house. The dim lighting and cast of inanimate, dead, and otherwise disturbing creatures constantly plague Švankmajer's Alice to the point that any normal adult viewer becomes offset, both physically and emotionally. The death and dinge on screen are accompanied by an audio assault of repetitive mechanical suffering. Broken cogs and mistreated ratchets numb the viewers mind with paralytic viciousness. In all the feature was one of the most tortorius i have seen without haveing an obvious outright intention of being so.
   Walt Disney, a paradigm of morality and virtue, also created an adaptation of Carroll's Alice. Disney's adaptation of the book was obviously, easily arguably for a innocent audience. The Disney Wonderland was exactly that, a place of wonder. Set in a ubercolored, forest, dreamworld, Disney's Alice may have the misfortune of constantly encountering obstacles, but the vast and vibrant color scheme and melodic and upbeat soundtrack constantly reassure the viewer that everything will turn out okay. The Disney Alice is propelled through a world much closer to that of Carroll's creation. The creatures she encounter are close representations of the originals drawn by John Tenniel, anr though at times may present a threat to Alice, they are (for the most part) drawn in a manner not to impose much fear or unease in Alice or the viewer.
   When comparing the two films, it is easy to conclude that 's Jan Švankmajer's Alice is far more adult both in it's tone and  screen images than its Walt Disney counterpart. Though, that is not to say that adult orientation of the book is bad, Carroll did in fact write the story with many adult subtleties, it is just the opinion of this author that Wonderland should represent something I want to wonder about, and Švankmajer's world of Alice is not one of them.   

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