Alice ou la dernière fugue

I expected a film with a protagonist named "Alice Carroll" to have something to do with Lewis Carroll's Alice books, but Claude Chabrol's "Alice or the Last Escapade" (although it seems a mistranslation to me to go from "fugue" to "escapade") reminds me more of Luis Buñuel's "The Exterminating Angel" (1962) and seems to have more in common with a different book, which this film's Alice reads in one scene, Jorge Luis Borges's "Fictions." That would explain the quasi-surrealism, labyrinth and purgatory-like entrapment and genre elements closer to horror than to the fairy tales of Carroll. Besides the one character's name, I didn't see much here beyond a checkered floor pattern or a somewhat small door and a generally strange place and characters suggesting that the film took inspiration from the Alice books. It's not an especially egregious bait-and-switch in this regard, although it's a travesty to cite Alice for a film that also reads largely as a reactionary revenge fantasy on the era's politics of second-wave feminism.

Allow me to elaborate. The picture begins with the male gaze (the concept of the "male gaze," itself, being a product of feminist film theory of the same era as this film--within a couple years, in fact, as Laura Mulvey penned her essay "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema" in 1975), as Alice's beau is watching TV. While doing so, he calls upon Alice to listen to him complain about his day. Fed up with this male-centric gaze and storytelling, she announces that she's leaving him. He assumes she's being hysterical (a more accurate reading of the "fugue" in the title, I suspect, with all the misogynistic connotations of diagnosing women "hysterical") and warns her against leaving that night. Undeterred, Alice drives off on her own escapade, but her being a female driver in a man's movie, she soon crashes the car. A film-within-the-film of her emotional reflections is even played out on the windshield before the glass is broken--suggesting the incident has more to do with the emotional storm inside her than with the rainy weather outside.

Alice takes shelter in a mansion in what turns out to be something of a twist on the haunted, old-dark-house formula. The strange men she meets here inform her that she's trapped there and that her state of affairs is a source of amusement for them. In other words, she's found herself the subject of the male gaze, of which she cannot escape. She's confined in a film, with the mansion its theatre. This is, perhaps, most striking in a sequence that would otherwise seem to be a display of gratuitous nudity, as Alice stands seemingly alone in her room with a disembodied voice speaking to her. She tries to cover herself from an unseen gaze. Who's subjugating her with this voyeurism? We, the spectator, are.

This is such a well-constructed bit of reflexive composition centered on the cinematographic apparatus--its gaze and, thus, our gaze. It makes for a more engaging picture than the questionable ideology and trite sexism displayed would otherwise deserve.

A brilliant movie. I liked it because all the time everything seemed so possible, but strange until the very end where you're shocked finding out what was really going on. It gets you to think about so many things related to life, dreams, and death.

In my view this is one of the best Chabrol's movies. Unfortunately, it did not get as much attention as the others.

Sylvia Kristel was good in her role. She has actually shown she could act.

The Disney cartoon is one of my favorite movies and while looking into other adaptations of the story I stumbled across this.

The beginning of the movie feels cliche and it drags a little. When she gets to Wonder/Horrorland the movie began to pull me in. The eerie infinite looping Mansion, with freaky characters and bizarre happenstances work well to build an unpredictable world that you alongside Alice get stuck in. Towards the end of the movie, keeping it spoiler free, Alice made a decision that I really don't understand. And the conclusion is something I had seen before in a Twilight Zone episode.

As an adaptation of Alice In Wonderland/Looking-Glass it's a flop. There is no Wonderland. None of the characters are there. The story is original. It's not complete non-sense. It's adult oriented. And aside from a couple of vague novel references it has nothing to do with Carrol's Story.

As a stand alone I think it's a hidden gem. With dozens of movie renditions, Alice doesn't always need to be true to the book. This movie has a great atmosphere, and in its own right a good sense of world building. Sure it's flawed and is clearly put together with time constraints and a low budget. But I do think it's worth checking out, and it's among the better horror movies that I have seen.

Saw this by chance late one evening.

Was attracted by the ambiance, which I found very Tarkovsky-esque, before I was attracted by Sylvia Kristel (she was not on screen during the first minutes I saw ;-)

Was surprised to see her act. Really loved the pace and the suspense. Found the conclusion wonderful, though-provoking, unexpected.

In my view this is clearly in the top 10 percent of Chabrol's production. I don't understand why this film is not well-known - maybe because it has an ex-erotic film actress in it?

A very good surprise.

Though this was considered as something of an aberration in Chabrol's filmography and thus proved somewhat hard to find, for me it had always been the most intriguing entry from this ostensibly lean period (stretching from 1976 to 1984) in the director's career – being a unique foray for him into outright Surrealism and for which he obviously drew inspiration from "Alice In Wonderland" (even down to naming his heroine Alice Carol {sic}!).

Anyway, I was thoroughly absorbed in the dream-like 'events' – helped in no small measure by Jean Rabier's exquisite photography, a moody score by Pierre Jansen and, of course, the beguiling presence of stunning leading lady Sylvia Kristel (fitted throughout in a variety of simple but very elegant dresses). Given the latter's casting, star of the official "Emmanuelle" series of erotic movies, this clearly takes on an adult perspective – but, apart from one full-frontal nude scene and the barest hint of lesbianism towards the end, it is not otherwise explicit in this regard.

Incidentally, the original source has always been somehow refuted of its prepubescent associations; even so, it is telling that the film under review (featuring the likes of Charles Vanel, Jean Carmet, Chabrol's own young son Thomas, as well as Fernand Ledoux and Andre' Dussolier, both in dual roles for no very good reason except adding to the fun!) is, to me, a more rewarding viewing experience than the many versions of the Lewis Carroll classic I have come across. For the record, I am familiar with those made in 1933 (Paramount), 1951 (Walt Disney), 1966 (BBC-TV), 1972 (British) and 1988 (Jan Svankmajer) but still need to check out Tim Burton's latest adaptation, while also owning the pseudo-biopic DREAMCHILD (1985).

Chabrol may have been motivated towards making this following the release of the similarly oddball, even more fanciful but also rather muddled BLACK MOON (1975), made by his peer in the "Nouvelle Vague" movement Louis Malle. However, for all their illogical nature, the various episodes Alice finds herself a helpless and bewildered participant in – and which I have deliberately refrained from describing, since these have to be seen to be properly appreciated! – remain firmly grounded in reality (set as they are in a country-house, a gas station and a restaurant). The opening marital squabble and poignant closing shot, then, would seem to be evoking Jean-Luc Godard's CONTEMPT (1963), yet another of Chabrol's former colleagues! Indeed, an opening title reveals that ALICE is dedicated to the memory of the late Fritz Lang, one of Chabrol's idols and an actor (portraying himself no less!) in the latter film.

All of this creates a hauntingly oneiric feel which admirably approaches the contemporaneous work of my all-time favorite auteur, Luis Bunuel. The last act even introduces a DEAD OF NIGHT (1945)-like circular inevitability to the proceedings, while the final revelation of Alice's 'in limbo' predicament recalls, of all things, Jess Franco's A VIRGIN AMONG THE LIVING DEAD (1971; albeit one of his better efforts). In retrospect, it is regrettable that Chabrol did not go down this path more often in his career – and, while the film can be cherished as a one-off, it is also liable to get lost in the shuffle of his prolific oeuvre.