Alice (Neco z Alenky, 1988)

Needless to say, Guillermo del Toro's El Laberinto del Fauno doesn't quite corner the market when it comes to adolescent escapism; it's simply the latest of such films which portray (usually little girls, for some reason) retreating into their own mind to escape some unpleasantness in reality. One might think of this as a sort of daydream? In any event, a tale which predates Pan's Labyrinth by some 140 years sparked the creative genius of surrealist Czech filmmaker Jan Svankmajer in the form of 1988's Alice, a retelling of Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.

Svankmajer utilizes, bear with me, a mixture of live action and stop-motion animation to spin the sometimes bizarre interpretation. Alice's adventure begins in an innocently enough scene where Alice (played by one-and-done dough-eyed actress Kristýna Kohoutová) is throwing stones into a pond while sitting beside her mother, who reads from a large, untitled book. The tone turns suspicious when Alice is slapped for fondling the pages of said book and she (and we) are transported to Alice's room where she sits beside two dolls while tossing pebbles into a cup & saucer of tea; a taxidermy white rabbit in the corner of her room is brought to life. The chase begins.

Interpretations of Svankmajer's visionary redux span the gamut; from a child's response to severe discipline (scenes of continuously locked doors culminate in Alice being shut in her home's pantry and the King & Queen of Hearts demanding an confectionery confession at Alice's trial), to the phantasmagorical decor Alice resides in predisposing her to fantastic fantasies. A product of her environment, per se. All of this can be put aside, of course, and it can be enjoyed a skillfully organic vision. Be relieved that most of the iconic characters are included in one form or another. Most note-worthy, a symbiosis between character-puppets Mad Hatter and Doormouse, who shift from chair to chair in order to make use of a "clean cup", of which is eventually licked clean again by a fox pelt. And that's a hundredth of Alice's treats! Camilla Power provides the minimal English voice-over work. A must see.