Jan Svankmajer’s adaptation of Lewis Carroll’s ‘Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland’ is, much like the work of his Czech New Wave peers, an enigmatic piece of cinema. Alice (1988) was Svankmajer’s first feature film and came some years after his government - imposed ban on filmmaking was lifted under the assumption that he would direct solely literary adaptation going forward.
Looking at how film sites attempt to classify the film by genre yields some interesting results, particularly in the case of Rotten Tomatoes, which lists a plethora of genre descriptions including animation, horror, as well as science fiction and fantasy among others.
It's a mix of results that surely occurs due to the variety of elements that constitute the film's form and content; its combination of animation and live-action, extensive use of puppetry, and socio-political subtext.
In attempts to define Alice by genre, it becomes clear that some genre labels are more dubious than others. Animation is particularly problematic for a couple of reasons. The first being that animation is not so much a genre as it is a medium that contributes to the film’s form. Furthermore, issues labelling the film as animation arise given that Alice does not spend its duration as solely animated. Rather, the film transgresses the medium through its melding of animation and live-action.
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| Director Jan Svankmajer on the set of Alice |
In attempts to define Alice by genre, it becomes clear that some genre labels are more dubious than others. Animation is particularly problematic for a couple of reasons. The first being that animation is not so much a genre as it is a medium that contributes to the film’s form. Furthermore, issues labelling the film as animation arise given that Alice does not spend its duration as solely animated. Rather, the film transgresses the medium through its melding of animation and live-action.
Even fantasy, as a genre label, seems inaccurate. Despite being adapted from a fantasy novel - while it does retain certain fantastical elements - tonally, Svankmajer's Alice is a far-cry from Disney’s animated adaptation of the same material from 1951, and boasts a much more uneasy atmosphere not typically associated with fantasy’s more whimsical leanings.
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| Tea with the March Hare and the Mad Hatter in Alice (1988) |
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| Tea party in Alice In Wonderland (1951) |
Surprisingly, it’s the label of horror that seems most fitting. Svankmajer's darkly surreal vision has gained some cult appeal among horror fans; both from the level sub-cultural fandom – Alice is listed on 366 Weird Movies - a blog that focuses on cult films - with attention drawn to Alice’s more horror-like qualities; as well as academic analysis where the film has been subject to gothic readings.
The film depicts scenes of self-cannibalism (the white rabbit, with an open wound, bleeds its stuffing into a bowl which it then consumes from), scores of Uncanny dolls, and features an especially unsettling use of sound design – a trademark of horror that features prominently in David Lynch’s Eraserhead (1977); a similarly surreal and ‘genre-less’ film that has also earned a cult reputation within the horror community.
Attempting to classify Alice with singular genre labels is something of a Herculean task. Perhaps the only place Alice fits into is amongst the other avant-garde gems of the Czech New Wave; even then, Alice wasn’t even released until some 18 years after what was arguably the last film of this new wave – the similarly enigmatic Valerie and Her Week of Wonders (1970). A surreal re-imagining of a classic novel which has gained a cult following among the horror community through its unsettling mise-en-scene; a bizarre meld of animation and live-action underpinned with socio-political context - Alice, it seems, is a true one-off.
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