'Oh, it's too bad!' she cried. `I never saw such a house for getting in the way! Never!'
Through the Looking Glass, Lewis Carroll
The White Rabbit put on his spectacles. `Where shall I begin, please your Majesty?' he asked.
`Begin at the beginning,' the King said gravely, `and go on till you come to the end: then stop.' (Carroll, "Wonderland", 132)
A work of the French New Wave (which we have covered here before with Zazie Dans Le Metro) Claude Chabrol's Alice is extremely unknown. Online there are limited articles and the only real scholarly piece on it being a 2018 essay from ACMI's Wonderland: Alice on screen exhibition book (which with apologies, I will liberally quote from in this essay).
Claude Chabrol was a celebrated French New Wave director, whose work and style is often dubbed "The French Hitchcock" (Croce, "Looking back..." 2014) For Alice or the Last Escapade, Chabrol employs thriller style techniques such as a sudden spiking, pulsating score at certain moments and long shots of near empty rooms and corridors. One critic in particular pointed out that this film is "the closest Chabrol ever came to making a horror movie" (Croce, "Looking back..." 2014) Certainly, these stylistic choices are employed to create a very specific type of unease, which is typically not associated with films which are successors to Carroll's literary Alice.
Taking the protagonist's name from the novels of Carroll, Alice or the Last Escapade plunges its viewers into a slow moving, oddly realistic down the rabbit hole film. Visually the film is shot as if it is a work of realism rather than an Avant Garde surrealist film, and it also matches this in its tone.
Chabrol's Alice may not traverse anywhere particularly fantastical but the film is rife with illogical ideas. Crucially the work takes the idea of Looking Glass House from Carroll's Through the Looking Glass and runs with it, creating an entire film seemingly built around the quote:
"the path gave a sudden twist and shook itself (as she described it afterwards), and the next moment she found herself actually walking in at the door." (Carroll, "Looking Glass", 20)
Pictures and Conversations
""And what is the use of a book", thought Alice, "without pictures or conversations?"" (Carroll, "Wonderland", 1)
The film is extremely preoccupied with conversations, many there to deliberately infuriate Alice. From the young boy who claims to know the birds around the estate, to the frog footman like man who stands at the mansion wall, and argues with Alice about there being an other side over it.
The few people Chabrol's Alice meets are also not interested in her whims at all. Some commentators have seen the conversations Alice has in the film as a commentary of women's place in the 70s and the feminist struggle.
The conversations make no conventional logical sense but similar to the works of Lewis Carroll, they all serve the purpose to drag the protagonist deeper into absurdity.
This is much noticeable in a later scene where upon seemingly escaping from the house, Alice drives out and stops at a cafe where a large party is taking place. Alice is given tea as "we only have tea here" and watches the large party celebrate a funeral as a man is laid in a coffin. The dancing parallels Carroll's lobster quadrille as it is meshed with nonsensical songs. Looking out the window, Alice sees the bird obsessed boy from the country mansion, grinning in a Cheshire cat manner. This scene has no purpose but plays with carrollian slants on gatherings and death.
Curiosity, food, and consequences
"burning with curiosity, she ran across the field after it." (Carroll, "Wonderland", 2)
Chabrol's Alice's yearning to find out what she's stumbled into and refusal to sit politely still, mirrors 7 year old Alice's curiosity about everything she comes across in her dream worlds. But in contrast to Carroll, Chabrol frames his Alice's curiosity as negative. It is her yearning for something new that draws her to the mansion and thus traps her.
"`What did they live on?’ said Alice, who always took a great interest in questions of eating and drinking." (Carroll, "Wonderland", 76)
Alice in Wonderland eats and drinks food and drink out of curiosity and in the knowledge that it will magically transform her, and enable her to voyage onwards in her adventures. For Alice of Chabrol, curiosity is similarly linked with food. It is notable after consuming her dinner she is then trapped in the mansion. Later on coffee readies her for a vigorous exploration of every available room in the house. Much like for Carroll's Alice, food can help, but it cannot offer Chabrol's Alice the answers she craves.
Disturbingly curiosity in Chabrol's film is often linked with a consequence of unhappiness. There are several sequences when "Chabrol... punishes Alice for rebelling" (O’Donoghue, "Alice.." 2018) This is seen most prominently in the looking glass sequence where on attempting to find the secret of the omnipresent stopped clock pendulum, Alice is, so to speak, punished by the hallway of the house inverting, leaving her unable to traverse the floor.
Carroll only punishes his Alice arguably once, when she cries and shrinks into her own tears. However Carroll sees his Alice's curiosity and character as a whole in a positive light "loving and courteous to all, King or Caterpillar" (Carroll, "Alice on the stage", 293 -298). Despite whatever is thrown at her in both her dreams, Carroll's Alice always moves on to her next adventure with a bright attitude. In contrast Chabrol's Alice maintains a bright attitude but is continually punished.
Is this strain of punishment in Alice or the Last Escapade an attempt by Chabrol to let out a frustration or even dislike of feminism?
The film can be seen as "reinscribing patriarchal norms" (O’Donoghue, "Alice..." 2018) but equally can be viewed as supportive of feminism and reflective of 1970s women's hopes and fears. Chabrol cast his "feminist narrative" (Croce, "Looking back..." 2014) provocatively with Sylvia Krystel, "the star of the softcore box-office hit Emmanuelle" as Alice, and " Surrounded by... condescending male guardians... Alice proves to be a resourceful explorer" (Croce, "Looking back..." 2014)
Her first words in the film are "No thank you" and Alice certainly is a bright, stubborn, determined force throughout... Who is also ultimately punished for escaping a bad situation. Perhaps it could be said that the film itself is caught in the same transition 1970s culture was, between sexualising women as objects and embracing liberation.
"It was as much as she could do, lying down on one side, to look through into the garden with one eye; but to get through was more hopeless than ever." (Carroll, "Wonderland", 12)
The most important symbol in Alice or the last Escapade is undoubtedly the stopped pendulum clock in the spare room of the mansion, which can be read as small allusion to the Hatter's infamous stopped tea party watch from Carroll's Wonderland. However the second important symbol in the film is the smaller door Alice can't open in the hallway. Alice believes the things or place behind the door is key to understanding her predicament. It is notable that when the true nature of the door is revealed, it has a disturbing purpose.
Much like Lewis Carroll's Alice, who in Wonderland aims to get through a small door into a garden she identifies as "The loveliest... you ever saw" (Carroll, "Wonderland", 6) the door in Alice or the last escapade is off limits for its protagonist for the most part of the narrative. In a darker parallel, both doors in their respective works lead to death related places, mirroring how the Wonderland garden door leads Carroll's Alice to the death obsessed Queen of Hearts.
Conclusion
Chabrol's film reflects on carrollian motifs and preoccupations whilst also telling a far more realistic story. The understated style of telling and long sequences of little consequence make this a tough sell for the typical fan of this genre. Despite this I believe it is worth viewers time. It is the realistic twin to Louis Malle's more surrealistic Black Moon (1975) which is next week's essay.
References:
Books:
Carroll, Lewis. Alice's adventures in Wonderland, London: Puffin Books, 1994.
Carroll, Lewis. "Alice on the stage", in Alice's adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking glass, edited by Hugh Haughton, page 293 - 298. London: Penguin Books, 2009.
Carroll, Lewis. Through the Looking-glass and what Alice found There, London: Puffin Books, 2003.
Online articles and essays:
Croce, Fernando. “Looking Back: ‘Alice or the Last Escapade.’” Movie Mezzanine. Movie Mezzanine, published April 14, 2014. Accessed June 30,2020. http://moviemezzanine.com/looking-back-alice-or-the-last-escapade/.
O’Donoghue, Darragh. "Rebellious Alice: Bringing down the house of cards", ACMI. ACMI (Australian Centre for the Moving Image). Accessed June 30, 2020. https://www.acmi.net.au/ideas/read/rebellious-alice/.
