Alice Dos Anjos (2021) is truely a wonderful adaptation of Carroll

NOTE: I saw this in December when it was streaming on Innsaei TV Brazil for 2 days. It has since come to my attention that this film is no longer streaming anywhere. As such I will try and keep spoilers to a minimum.

(Tiffanie Costa as Alice in Alice Dos anjos) 

Directed by: Daniel Leite Almeida

Adapted from: Alice's adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass 

(parts of both books)

Due to the amount of adaptations currently filming, it may be best to consider this adaptation 1 of the decade... it certainly looks like there will be more. 

The first adaptation of Lewis Carroll's Alice books in TV or film (Excluding filmed theatre performances) for 20 years (yes, 1999 really was THAT long ago)  Alice Dos Anjos (2021) carries a lot of weight of expectation on it. A small, indie Brazilian Portuguese language film, this was released at an online festival for an extremely limited time. 

Alice (played fantastically by Tiffanie Costa) walks into a land of wonder accidentally after being given some momentous family news. She finds a place populated with her grandmother's stories, a place that is alternately strange and wondrous, and also under threat from local developers...

The influence of previous adaptations such as 1999 and 1985 can be felt in this version with the inclusion of a subplot. However unlike those two versions, Dos Anjos integrates a subplot in far more seamlessly, so much so that a first time audience may barely notice the subtle slide from Carroll's material to subplot. In a sense, this can be considered a re-visioning of these two adaptations, taking in elements of both but also finding ways to make those elements better. Because Alice Dos Anjos's subplot is political in nature (concerning hydro politics and land building) it will be interesting to compare this film to 1976 Pla and 1988 jan svankmajer which also used Carroll as a theme to talk about government and climate. 

The nature of the adaptation is one which is extremely unique: it relies on the audience recognizing and knowing parts of Carroll are being adapted, but it does not strictly use Carroll's texts or words. For example, a white rabbit's house scene and a dum and dee scene happen at the same time, but because the characters are not called "traditional" names, this might be harder to spot than usual. Another key part of this adaptation that sadly I cannot know fully is its culture and values: the film is rooted in the culture of Northeast Brazil and its people. The idea of a highly localized Alice is similar somewhat to Svankmajer: a specific adaptation set at a specific time and place.