Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is a fascinating mix of childhood fantasy, very funny, satiric parody, and dream-logic weirdness. Most adaptations pick either the childhood or weirdness angles (the comedy is best served from the book itself; preferably the reading by Cyril Richard), and Jonathan Miller's version hits that weirdness angle very hard.
This is an unusual version of Alice. Instead of dressing up as the story's animals, this is just a movie about really odd Victorian humans interacting with a particularly unpleasant Alice who spends most of the movie staring blankly into space.
The movie is in some ways more faithful than most adaptations, including a lot of the original dialogue only changed to remove mention of animal forms, but by because you don't usually see Alice's physical transitions (perhaps for budget reasons?) and hear little of her internal monologue most of the first half will be incomprehensible to anyone who doesn't know the story.
Miller's main intention seems to be to bring out the dream aspect of the book, and in this he succeeds admirably. The movie really feels like a dream; full of disconnected moments and confused conversations and stuffed with odd items.
While the dialogue is from the book, the presentation kills most of the wit. Carroll's clever parodic poems are rendered in confused, incomplete form. Peter Cook's distinctive Mad Hatter seems determined to kill the jokes with his airy delivery.
I was torn between giving this a 6 or a 7. It's creation of a real dream-state is wonderful, and there are some excellent moments (the Mad Tea Party isn't that funny but is still pretty engaging), but it is often slow moving and tends to pretension. I would definitely recommend this, especially to fans of the Alice books, even though ultimately I didn't enjoy it very much.
This is an unusual version of Alice. Instead of dressing up as the story's animals, this is just a movie about really odd Victorian humans interacting with a particularly unpleasant Alice who spends most of the movie staring blankly into space.
The movie is in some ways more faithful than most adaptations, including a lot of the original dialogue only changed to remove mention of animal forms, but by because you don't usually see Alice's physical transitions (perhaps for budget reasons?) and hear little of her internal monologue most of the first half will be incomprehensible to anyone who doesn't know the story.
Miller's main intention seems to be to bring out the dream aspect of the book, and in this he succeeds admirably. The movie really feels like a dream; full of disconnected moments and confused conversations and stuffed with odd items.
While the dialogue is from the book, the presentation kills most of the wit. Carroll's clever parodic poems are rendered in confused, incomplete form. Peter Cook's distinctive Mad Hatter seems determined to kill the jokes with his airy delivery.
I was torn between giving this a 6 or a 7. It's creation of a real dream-state is wonderful, and there are some excellent moments (the Mad Tea Party isn't that funny but is still pretty engaging), but it is often slow moving and tends to pretension. I would definitely recommend this, especially to fans of the Alice books, even though ultimately I didn't enjoy it very much.