Alice160: New Carrollianism in Film/TV

 

This post is part 1 of 2 discussing Alice160, and its cultural relevance, as well as future relevance. This part examines cinema and upcoming/new visions of Alice in Cinema. Part 2 will discuss legacy of Carroll, current legacy, and possible ways to increase engagement.

This is a post I've wanted to write for a while after seeing quite a lot of new Alice films pop up at film festivals and elsewhere relatively recently :)

After an obliterating 20 year gap of adaptations of Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass, outside of the 2010 films which didn't adapt the books, and TV specials of filmed theatre, cinema and TV finally heralded a new interest in 2020/2021 with Carroll's works. All directed by independent filmmakers, this new group of films we can include:  Daniel Leite Almeida 's Alice in Backlands, Giulia Grandinetti's Alice and the Land that Wonders, Fabrício Bittar's Alice in the Internet, and Adam Donen's Alice Through the Looking. 

 Releases specifically upcoming for this year of Alice160 will be Toshiya Shinohara and PA Works's anime Dive in Wonderland, and Yuriy Khmelnitskiy's musical Alisa v Strane Chudes. These are both non traditional adaptations and so could be added to the above list.

These films are all disparate, appealing to different audiences, and demographics, and using Carroll's texts for  different ends. Sometimes these films have shades of politics, sometimes they put 2020s lifestyle under a microscope by using carroll's work as a lens, but always they are startlingly original. Not every project from this list is out commercially yet (and some were seen for a limited time) but this short list shores up interest by screenwriters and directors in Carroll's work for the first time in a long while.

Because the 1999 TV film got such a mixed critical reaction upon airing, and related to this, the 2016 in name only attempt by Disney getting such a disastrous reception, it is noticeable that many "new" alices from the above list make a point aesthetically and artistically by choosing the opposite choices to Disney's 2010 duology or 1999's spectacle. Spectacle in big budget visual effects, big ticket million dollar actors, and CGI landscapes. None of the new films since 2020 place Alice and her dreamworlds in a Victorian setting either, Backlands opts for the landscape and community of the Northeastern Brazil outback, Internet opts for the internet, Land that Wonders reconfigures its Wonderland as a cold health clinic and Looking throws its student Alice into an alternate satirical London. 

In the question for how to make 2020s audiences connect to Alice, her dreamworlds, and the mysterious characters that populate it, this new film trend opts to go as modern and therefore as understandable to audiences as possible. Gone are the poems, the remarks about bathing machines, mock turtle soup, victorian railway journeys and teatimes. Whilst it is a shame to see some of these elements from Carroll disappear in new adaptations, the non success of the last versions that tried a Victorian setting is an obvious reason as to why this choice is no longer taken. If audiences do not connect with the Victorian setting, filmmakers' revisioning the novels to now remains the only viable option to connect the Alice tales back to cinema audiences and to invite new ones in.

I invite you to watch the trailers of these "new carrollian" films below. Some you can find around online, others are awaiting release. All are worth your time:

(TW: some trailers contain strobe lighting)

Notification!

 Alice in Backlands (original title: Alice Dos Anjos) is now on dailymotion with English subtitles!

Alice (Tiffanie Costa) discovers a bizarre and brilliant land where she encounters even stranger characters. However the community is under threat from a local colonel who will do anything to take the land the community relies on.

This delightful adaptation aired on ARTE1 Brazil a few months ago, after many years round festival circuits in the region. It has a cabinet of trophies to prove its worth now. For us here its most valued as being the technical first adaptation of Carroll's Alice books as a film/TV special since... 1999's NBC attempt. 

I'd say more, but really you should just go and enjoy it. This is the first of several adaptations this decade to release (if IMDB is correct fully) so we are nowhere done with Carroll and film yet :)

You can follow announcements for this film officially on instagram :)

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.