Alice à travers le miroir

Clear yet subtle, funny and sophisticated in its apparent simplicity: an excellent rendition of Carroll's own quirky humor, and vastly entertaining. A fine cast, appropriate staging, and a literary pace combine to make this an outstanding film. Would that it were available on DVD!

In 1871, A deacon logician at Oxford published a sequel to his surprisingly popular children's story. In that original, he had dabbled in the mix of logic and mysticism that he thought respectable. Fortunately for him, it was characterized as the sort of nonsense genre created by Edward Lear. But he was deeply disturbed in the years that followed as the Church and what came to be called spiritualism diverged. So to make amends to his God, and to deflate the Kabbalistic origin of the first work, he formulated something with much the same structure and tone, but without the magic.

This work was based on conundrums created by the symmetries in the world. It became as popular as the first. His later works tried harder to distance himself from divination and became tepid Christian allegories. "Through the Looking-glass" was so successful that it and the original Alice are often merged as if they were seamless. The symmetries in the later work are easier to quote, so the looking-glass symbology and structure is re-used and quoted far more than the dangerous and slippery original Alice.

In 1979, auteur Raoul Ruiz made "The Hypothesis of the Stolen Painting," a remarkable film, using the Alice structure as a template for narrative folding and a painting as the conflation of both book and mirror.

Based on this, cinematic novelist Arturo Pérez-Reverte, wrote a rather complex and ambitious novel. "The Flanders Panel" published in 1990.

In 1994, filmmaker Jim McBride continued on of his two film careers, the one where he starts with extremely ambitious material, making a mainstream film based on Pérez-Reverte's novel. While the novel was inherently cinematic, McBride added an extra dimension: the folds of inner narrative, of dreams and fantasies were mapped onto the body of the on screen detective, with insight conflated with nudity. To accomplish this insofar as he could, he found a quite beautiful and intuitively talented young actress. Like Nastassja Kinski and Asia Argento before her, she grew up in an acting family and genuinely knew how to map narrative on her body, unafraid to be as sexually complex as possible. Together, Kate Beckinsale and McBride made an interesting if not profoundly successful film.

Like Kinski and Jovovich, Beckinsale would go on to make films directed by lovers, films that would shamelessly exploit this talent. But in between her First Alice and her leathered vampire phase, she was Alice in a literal film version of the book. Well, it is not quite literal in that we have to explain why a redheaded sexual being is in this looking-glass world, and plot accommodations are made based on the Pérez-Reverte model.

This film is a disaster, an utter disaster if you take it as it comes. It has none of the magic of the book, though the language and images are used exactly. It has none of engagement that other experiments have with whatever mix of mystery and sex they use. And though it experiments with cinematic inner visions, the devices used are from Terry Gilliam and all utterly fail.

But if you see it in this greater context of Kate's mother, the Lewis Carroll cover-up and deliberately obfuscated magic; if you see it as overtly sexual but with the sex completely hidden: homeopathic seduction, then it works amazingly well. Alice as a redhead!

Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.

Without infringing on the IMDb guidelines, can I just suggest that this film is a disappointing visualisation of the greatest book ever written? Lewis Carroll's masterpiece is too mercurial to depict - taken out of its literary context, its ideas, incidents and characters simply don't make sense. Its humour and traumas are literary and philosophical. The filmmakers fail to adapt forms, instead relying on swathes of dialogue.

Different film styles are used to try and disrupt normality, a la Carroll, but the incoherent script, uncertain acting and muffled diction only grate. There is no sense of narrative momentum (even if only to be subverted), and targets are missed because it is unclear what they are. Changing the book's view from that of a child to a woman renders the whole exercise redundant. Graver still is the unwillingness to trust the audience - the dream/reality ambiguity, crucial to the book's meaning, is too clearcut. The colours and set design can be extremely beautiful though.

I really enjoyed this adaptation. It was far and above better than Disney's attempt to turn what is already a children's book into a 'kiddie' film. It was, with very few exceptions, very true to the book, despite the difficulties associated with converting Carroll's unique style to a screenplay.

Something I've always felt critical to adapting both Alice stories is her precocious nature. There is truly no way a child actor could handle the scope of Alice in any film. I thought moving the story to an older Alice was wonderful. And Kate Beckinsale's performance in that capacity was outstanding. She brought to life the very childlike innocence and naivete of Alice while dealing so very well with interpreting Alice's very opinionated, stubborn and whimsical personality. And visually, she fit the role perfectly. :-)

The quirky nature and self-interpretation in this film is a wonderful way to introduce children to a complex and bizarre children's story. I can only hope that it will be available on DVD someday.

This is the best film version of the Lewis Carroll story that I've seen. Other versions usually employ comedians as actors and their performances are always way over-the-top. This version is really amusing because the dialogs are so deadpan serious. Sort of Pythonesque. I think that is how Lewis Carroll intended it to be done; that is how I read the books. I love the dialog between Alice (Kate Beckinsale) and the White Knight (Ian Holm). They are both so intense and sincere about discussing such very silly topics and that is what makes it so amusing. Kate's reactions to many of the inane things that happen is so subdued. It's perfect.