Alice no País das Maravilhas

First time I saw this was on December 28th 1966 which was its first broadcast on BBC1, the next time was exactly 42 years later on a pristine BFI DVD. I was worried my childhood memories might be shattered by discovering it was simply a trippy '60's cop-out, but I needn't have been. Sure, it's a product of its time same as everything is, but it was and remains a unique filming of the classic tale by Lewis Carroll and imho the best version made so far.

Young Alice is transported by dream one sunny summer day to Wonderland where many adventures befall her. Whether Carroll was attracted or not to little girls ("I like all children, except boys") and whether that explains why his diaries had some ripped out pages at key moments is something we'll never know for sure now - I think he was merely a repressed idealist – but he created a timeless story for children of all ages. His 90 page painstakingly hand written original edition which he gave to Alice in 1864 as "a Christmas gift to a dear child in memory of a summer day" is currently online from the British Museum and well worth a read.

Jonathan Miller's erudite sharp focus black and white production assumed that it was really meant for satirical adults, however it still managed to impress this particular 7 year old and especially his 5 year old wife to be and their counterparts 42 years later. Favourite bits: Michael Redgrave as the Caterpillar and John Geilgud as the Mock Turtle; Alice's walk with Duchess Leo McKern down the path through the woods followed by the camera crew weaving in and out of the trees and forward and backward; almost every scene has something of note though. Maybe I could have done with a bit more of Ravi Shankar's exceptional tunes but no worries. It's a pity John Bird's and Peter Sellers' post Goon Show improvisations were left in - it's no good Miller saying it was in the spirit of Carroll when their obvious inspiration was Spike Milligan, just one eg from 1954's Dreaded Batter Pudding Hurler Of Bexhill On Sea: "Suddenly! Nothing happened! But it happened suddenly mark you!" And I still wonder how much the production influenced the Beatles with their image for 1967? Apparently the finished film was considered too long by the BBC and 30 minutes were chopped off. Off with their heads - all those potential Pinteresque moments lost!

This is something to treasure: an arty BBC film that was genuinely arty, entertaining and still eminently watchable generations later. It almost managed to capture the illusive illusionary qualities of dreams and those seemingly beautifully languid sunny days of the '60's – both 19th and 20th century.

I'm not sure I completely buy Jonathan Miller's account of the book, but his interpretation (as he explains it on the commentary track) is pretty wonderful on balance. It's funny, surprising, beautiful and mostly about the nature of dreams. The cast, for fans of British movies and TV of the period, may have never been equaled. There's one from "Help", there's one from "A Hard Day's Night", there's the midget from "The Prisoner!" Wonderful. The only real question is "Where's Dudley Moore?" At any rate, I just found out about this movie, it's only been out on DVD for a year or two but it's one I think I will always treasure.

"Who am I?" asks a shabbily dressed, scruffy-haired incarnation of Lewis Carroll's immemorial little girl lost. Of course, the answer's come in various forms ever since such cinematic endeavors as Cecil Hepworth's "Alice in Wonderland," made in 1903 (at 12 minutes, the longest British film of the day; Cecil, you'll remember, two years later made the world's first "dog star" with his monumentally successful "Rescued by Rover," which was shown so many times that the celluloid literally deteriorated, forcing the filmmakers to completely "re-produce" it two more times; his "Alice in Wonderland," unfortunately, did not boast such a success, and thus all we have today is something that looks as though it tumbled down the rabbit hole one too many times). But enough of this sluice at the bottom of the March Hare's treacle well, eh?

Made for the BBC's The Wednesday Play television series, Jonathan Miller's take on the subject matter is, as is traditionally the case, a unique one. With a budget approximating nothing more than his usual "taped stage plays" for which he previously gained great renown (think preter-PBS), Miller decided to illustrate what Alice would have gone through had all of her nonsensical dreams been steeped in the quotidian reality of her ordinary life. There are no talking birds, no storytelling mock turtles, no dormice living in teacups. In fact, short of a crude cut-out superimposition of a very ordinary looking "Cheshire cat" flying in the sky (a la the Teletubbies' eerily omniscient baby in the sun), there's really no special effects or anything that would evince this one of being the least bit chimerical…

… that is, unless you know the story of Alice in Wonderland already. Ostensibly, what Miller is doing here is showing us the curious, towheaded girl's "adventures" set in a world where people merely sound like birds and look like supine caterpillars sitting loftily back in their Victorian chairs and wondering aloud, "Who are you?" Imagine Wizard of Oz, but without all the costumes, flying monkeys, and mercurial trees pulling at the heroine's hair.

Suddenly, we along with Alice find ourselves in a land where we were already (that is, of course, if we were a haughty 11-year-old girl wandering lackadaisically through our castellated house in the late 19th century). What we see is the "reality" of the dreamworld of Alice's waking life.

And this is exactly what Miller captures in this version of the epic "children's" tale for stoners and mathematicians. In fact, the only real sense of "dreamland" we can extract from Miller's vision is a kind of proto-Gilliam realm of canted camera angles and unsettling juxtapositions of close-up faces in deep-focus environments (think Brazil or particularly Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas, which clearly owes both its visual and aural style to Mr. Miller). Truthfully, after watching this late 60's stark, black-and-white opus (if ever so disjointed and flawed), one would have to assume that Terry Gilliam took much of his artistic sensibility from what is definitely far more than a simple made-for-TV broadcast.

With a quadrille of British mainstays—Peter Cook as the Mad Hatter, Sir John Gielgud as the Mock Turtle, Alan Bennett as the Mouse, an uncredited Eric Idle, and the King of Hearts himself, Peter Sellers—Jonathan Miller, with lilting, ethereal score by Ravi Shankar, does what no other director has done to date with this timeless urtext: he shows us what would have happened had Alice stayed awake during her infamous tour through dreamland.

PS: If this one doesn't do it for you, try out Czech filmmaker Jan Svankmajer's nightmarish Alice (1988), which must be the most haunting adaptation of Alice's adventures yet put on celluloid.

Alice in Wonderland is one of the most astounding works of literature. It has therefore inspired many entertainers to do many different variations of Wonderland and its sequel, Through the Looking Glass.

Jonathan Miller's BBC version is extremely different from most adaptations of Alice, especially the Disney version (which is not really the most accurate portrayal of Lewis Carroll's logically illogical world). Miller evokes a rather haunting and surrealistic Victorian dreamworld filled with stuffy grown-ups numbly adhering to propriety and social etiquette. Alice is lost in this landscape, trying to find herself and trying to understand the process of growing up.

This variation is clearly more suitable for adults, since the mood is darker and none of the characters have any makeup at all. But the cast is excellent, with appearances by such legends as Sir Michael Redgrave, Sir John Gielgud, and Peter Sellers. Anne-Marie Mallik portrays a more sullen Alice but is perfect for this version of Wonderland.

A unique and artistic production- a must for Alice fans who like to see Lewis Carroll in all forms!

A fascinatingly, surreal and psychedelic version of the Alice in Wonderland story. Shot in a Gothic black and white style, the cinematography is very well done and still holds up 50 years later.

The cast is very very good, particularly Anne-Marie Malik in her one and only role of Alice. She's petulant and outspoken, but also very reserved and examining. She's adorable, and her delivery of lines add to the dreamlike quality of the movie. She makes the whole movie worth watching.

Filmed as a TV play it's surprisingly well made, thank the BBC for that, they do some exceptional work.

Jonathan Miller's Alice in Wonderland is worth viewing if you can find it.