Weirdhouse Cinema: Alice (1988)

In this episode of Weirdhouse Cinema, Rob and guest co-host Seth discuss the 1988 surrealist dark fantasy film “Alice” by Czech stop-motion animation master Jan Švankmajer.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of
My Heart Radio. Hey you welcome to Weird House Cinema.
This is Rob Lamb and my name is Seth Nicholas Johnson.
That's right, Joe is still out on parental leaves. So
this week on Weird House Cinema, Seth is serving as

(00:24):
guest co host. Seth of course produces the show UH
and Uh and also hosts the podcast Rusty Needles Record Club.
So we've actually been cooking this episode up for a while.
I guess I think maybe just kind of off hand
conversation many many months back, you said, well, you know,
if I were to pick a Weird House film, I'd

(00:45):
go with Alice from UH film by check stop motion
animation master John's funk Meyer. And here we are. You know,
I think the listener might have been in on that conversation.
I think that might have happened in a listener mail
episode in real time. So so yeah, I think that
the audience has been along with us for this entire ride.
Here we are at our destination. Yeah, this this is

(01:08):
a film I had never watched before. I was familiar
with it because I'm familiar with um with Jon s
frank Meyer's work to a certain extent. I've seen some
of his work before, and we'll get into that as
as we go. But yeah, setting down and watching this
for the first time, this was an experience I had
just hours ago. I mean, it's it's it's a wonderful film.

(01:28):
It's one I've I've grown up with um and because
of that, I love to introduce people to it because
I do think that if people, I mean there are
there are obviously hundreds of adaptations of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland,
mostly because it's public domain, but it's also got really
great recognizability, and I think more than that, it's actually
just a truly wonderful book. Like like, it's one of

(01:51):
my favorite children's books full stop. Probably just one of
my favorite books period. Like, I think Alice's Adventures in
Wonderland is probably the first book that I fell in
love with as a child that never went away. You know.
Obviously there's a lot of children's books that kind of
fall by the wayside, but that one I was like,
oh no, this is like high quality literature that can
stick with me throughout the ages, and and it has.

(02:12):
It's been a book that I've read dozens of times.
So how how did this film come into your life?
Do you remember, particularly like how you ended up watching
it for the first time, and how you latched onto it.
I think, and this this is a while ago, so
I'm not entirely sure. I think as a youth, there
was a specific adaptation from the nineteen eighties of Alice's

(02:32):
Adventures in Wonderland that I really enjoyed that took yeah,
and so I think I was trying to track that
one down, and instead I came across this nineteen eighties
adaptation of Alice in Wonderland, started watching it, and then
just like, nope, I'm going to finish this. You know
this is the wrong adaptation, but I'm here for it.
For for my own part, I think I basically came

(02:55):
into John's funk Meyer a couple of ways via interest
in like industrial music, and then also by virtue of
moving to Atlanta, where we have the Center for Puppetry Art,
and pretty at least at the time, there's kind of
a robust, uh independent puppetry art scene, and and also
a great video rental store in Video Drone that has

(03:17):
a lot of the films, a lot of the films
all of john S Funkmeyer, and also many of the
individuals who are either his peers or people that influenced
him and um And in terms of like downstream influences,
like I feel like, especially in the West, like if
you were someone who did any kind of weird puppetry
or weird stop motion, I feel like his work is

(03:40):
probably or was probably on your radar. So even things
like creepy tool videos, which I think for a lot
of people like that's kind of your first um introduction
to strange stop motion, Like even that I don't think
would exist without a world in which we have Jance Funkmeyer.
I think there's a couple of really mainstream influences that

(04:03):
the average person has seen too. For example, both Wes
Anderson stop motion films Uh, The Fantastic Mr Fox and
um Isle of Dogs. Both of them have this very
deliberate look where the characters have for and they clearly
kind of rustle a bit from frame to frame. You
can see the you can see the handmade aesthetic in them,

(04:25):
and that I think is is clearly an influence and
homage and just kind of like an aesthetic choice that
Jan spank Meyer and you know, his contemporaries were doing
and they were doing it just because it's it's what
they were able to do the the Wes Anderson films.
I think they're doing it as like a note, we
want this to look handmade, we want you to see
the creator in every frame, just like these older stop

(04:47):
motion projects. So I think it's a wonderful look and
it does feel very handmade. You know. Yeah, there's they're
strong tactile um details in this film, like and and
it gets into the soundscape as well that we'll we'll
discuss here in a bit, like every all these very
very little objects that are manipulated, all the things and

(05:11):
creatures that are moving around. Um, it's I guess this
this might be to a certain some extent what Joe
sometimes describes as I rubbed the fur film tho the
same thing, and that you can imagine yourself holding these objects.
They're they're all these little often grimy or not really
grimy details. But uh, I don't know this whole film.

(05:32):
There are many times in the film where I like
really wanted to grab a broom. The meat freaking me
was like I could get a broom in there and
and do some work, and also perhaps warned this young
girl not to touch these things. You know, don't don't
stick your finger in that, Alice. No, a lot of
these things seemed very dangerous, and I was worried for her,
which which I'm sure is intentional from the director. Now, Alice,

(05:54):
I think it is very much a fascinating film, one
worth seeking out. But I think you do need to
know what getting into here. Um, this isn't really a warning,
but just just letting you know. This is a film
with a very very subdued pacing, a single human actor
who is also a child, strange ruinous sets, bizarre stop
motion animation, and virtually no musical score. It's also far

(06:18):
more watchable and enjoyable than anything I just said makes
it sound. Uh, it's not nearly as creepy as as
that is it makes, as we may be making it sound,
but it's also not un creepy. I mean, I think
this is for children and adults who who like the
darker side of fantasy, you know. I mean, like, for example,

(06:39):
when I grew up, and I'm sure you were the same,
I loved things like Labyrinth and The Dark Crystal. So
so therefore this fit in that for me. Obviously it's
a bit more art house than either of those, but
but it's still you know, it would would be a
part of that world, at least into my child eyes
and partially to my adult eyes. Yeah, yeah, I mean
there's something in this film that some might say or

(07:03):
interpreted as it is horrific but or or scary, But
I don't know, I don't I don't think there's anything
overtly scary or mean about the film. I think for
the most part, there is this sense of wonder. It
may be get kind of a dark leaning wonder, but
it is authentic wonder. And there's like a sense of
humor to it too, Like I I believe Jon spank

(07:25):
Meyer he must have known some of these grotesque puppets
that he created had kind of a goofy look to them,
you know. And and and in fact, there's there's one
shot which perhaps I would say is the only quote
unquote scary shot of like almost like a jump scare
from like a frog creature, but it's he's got such
a goofy face that you aren't really scared. It's just

(07:48):
sort of like, what is that? Yeah, the creatures we
encounter are generally silly enough looking that it kind of
disarms the terror that might that you might expect to
be there when saying things like and then the poorly
taxidermy and rotting animals come alive and start crawling all
over the place. It's true, it's it's it's a charming

(08:10):
version of poorly animated taxidermy. Duff. Yeah, yeah, no, it's
it's it's fun and goofy and charming and disturbing and
dirty and a little frightening. Um. When I was trying
to think of elevator pitches for the film, I mean,
for to a certain extent, doesn't need one. It's kind
of a legendary film and and that's kind of the
maybe one of the challenges and even talking about it

(08:31):
because like with within and you can speak more to
this than I can, but within the world of stop
motion and stop motion animation, like this is a big film,
like and this is a master we're dealing with here,
and not not even to mention the subject matter, Like
I think, even if someone hasn't seen this film, I
would bet the vast majority of our audience has probably

(08:53):
read the book, or the very least is familiar with
all of the beats that happened in this very unconventional story. Yeah,
and it does stick to a lot of the major beats,
so which I do that. I think that helps with
what was force funk Meyer his first if I'm correct
on this, his first full length film, uh, coming after
coming off of a string of shorter animated subjects. But

(09:17):
knowing that those beats are in place, that kind of
helps propel you through what is essentially, you know, a
feature length art film. Yeah. No, I feel the same way,
Like like, even when I'm watching it, I'm most familiar
with the book that I am with any of the
film adaptations. When when certain like points in the story hits,
I'm like, oh, they're playing croquet. I know where we are,
you know, like we're starting to wrap this up, you know.

(09:42):
But if I were to do an elevator pitch, I'd say,
it's it's Alice in Wonderland, except in one of the
houses from Silent Hill, but with the lights turned up
a bit, so it's not that scary. I think it's
a it's a fair pitch. There are a lot there's
a lot of trying to unlock doors and not being
able to. There are a lot of like range set
pieces and props, and then of course bizarre creatures that

(10:04):
you encounter. All right, let's go ahead and listen to
the trailer audio. This is a legitimate trailer audio from
the at least the English version of the film. And
I think it's quite nice because it does it certainly
doesn't give you any of the rich visuals that are
of course the main reason for watching the film, but
it does, I think, perfectly capture many of the elements

(10:25):
of the sound skin. I shall be too late side
the white traffic, how lazy side the white traffic. Well,
the Queen will be curious much of the white trappic

(10:45):
our invitations for Alice from the queen, said the white trabbic,
off with the heck, greeen the Queen. Now we'll we'll
come back to this of course. But yeah, what you
just heard, the the narration by Alice, the those kind

(11:10):
of ambient industrial sound effects that are happening in the background,
like this is the this is the soundscape of the film,
and and it's um. I I know folks who have
never really encountered art cinema that when I've shown them this,
they found that very cloying. But I think if if
you just accept it, I think it's perfectly fine. I mean,

(11:31):
in fact, I would say it's a good thing that
really uh enhances the overall aesthetics of the film, And
I think it's perfectly chosen. But yeah, I mean, I'm
not warning you. I'm just letting you know that it's art.
This is art house. Maybe. Yeah, so you're you're you're
talking about the the Alice narration, the how she's she's
reading the things that the other people are saying, are saying,

(11:52):
and then she creatures are saying that she's saying, um,
you know, the Mad Hatter said yeah, And and that's
always accompanied by a close up of her mouth when
she describes all those kind of descriptive verbs, things like
Alice thought, Alice said the red the Mad Hatter yelled.
You know, whenever one of those, like you know, dialogue

(12:13):
descriptors is happening, one of those dialogue verbs, it's a
close up of Alice's mouth kind of kind of saying that.
But but in addition to that, also that the the
just the sound design. I've had friends tell me it's
very cloying, just like the sounds of all the scuttling
bones scissors chomping away and yeah, all that. We'll, we'll,

(12:33):
we'll definitely discuss this as we proceed. So at this
point you might be wondering, Hey, where should I go
if I want to see this film? Well, you might
be able to stream this via some of your arts
and your streaming sources. There. There's so many places to
stream films these days, I can't even begin to keep
track of them all, but it looks like you might
be able to find it on some of those. It
might also be available to digitally rent or buy, at

(12:55):
least in some markets the UK, for example, I watched
it on a risk store Blu ray edition that I
rented from Video Drome. Here in Atlanta, they also have
the DVD and just a superb collection of stop motion offering.
So if you're local to the Atlanta area and are
interested in films like this, well they've they've got your back.
All right. Well, let's talk about some of the people
involved here. Again, they're not not not really a lot

(13:17):
in terms of cast, but we do have to talk
a little bit about Jan's funk Meyer, the director, writer,
and production designer for this film. So he was born
as of this recording is still with us legendary check
stop motion animator and and I think just general multimedia artist.
I think one thing to keep in mind, especially with

(13:39):
this film, and I think this applies to so many
of his other films as well. It's like, it's not
just wall to wall stop motion, their whole sequences where
it's Alice interacting with a strange environment, but there's there's
not something like crawling across the screen the whole time.
I guess also we should really state that in this
stop motion film, Alice is often a human girl interacting

(14:01):
with stop motion taxidermy and bones. But when she shrinks,
as people know she often does in the book, she
turns into quite often a little creepy doll version of herself.
So sometimes Alice the character is a stop motion doll,
and sometimes Alice is a full grown human being being

(14:23):
filmed on a camera, and so so it jumps back
and forth, it's all over the place, and so sometimes
it's like puppetry interacting with with the live action Alice.
Sometimes it's a split screen where you see live action
Alice on one side and stop motion on the other.
It's it's it's a whole combination of effects and Uh,
it's it's wonderful. You're never fooled by like, oh, that's

(14:45):
not real Alice, you know, like like it's it's obvious
when it switches over, but it's it's always perfectly charming
and believable and like, um, as the Disney animators would say,
it's the plausible impossible, like everything follows a through line.
It all makes sense. So sung Bier has been active
since the mid nineteen sixties and i've and it seems

(15:05):
to still be active. Uh. Over the course of his career,
his unique surrealistic style has been highly influential, especially on
such filmmakers as Terry Gilliam also the Americans stop motion
duo The Brothers k or Key or Quay. We we
actually just looked this up to try and get the
definitive answer, and uh we found it pronounced all three ways.

(15:27):
So um, my apologies for inevitably getting it wrong twice
two out three times, but at least he got it
right once. Yeah, one of those has to be correct. Uh.
Certainly more familiar with their work than uh, you know,
interviews with them, but they have a very distinctive style
that's reminiscent of sync Meyer. Uh. At any rate, all

(15:50):
all of these individuals have also been highly influential as well,
of course, So again I think it's not that much
of a stretch at all to say that most of
the range of surreal stop motion animation you're finding in
the world has at least some connection to spank Meyer's
work or or that general period in world of stop
motion animation. Some of sink Meyer's most notable works include

(16:14):
Faust from Little O Tech from two thousand and Surviving
Life from two thousand ten. His many short films include
Jabberwockie from seventy one, Leonardo's Diary from seventy two, and
and Castle of Otranto from ninety seven. So I don't
know about you step from my own, from my own
part um, I think I went through a period, this

(16:37):
is maybe fifteen years ago where I was again into
strange puppetry and I was getting into stop motion. I
remember renting numerous discs from the likes of Spec Meyer,
also Jerry Barta, who was another big name in check
stop motion, The Brothers, the Brothers k that we just mentioned.
Um So my memory is a little little faint on

(16:58):
on all of it, Like some is getting confused about
which work was directed by which uh individual or duo? UM.
I know I watched some of Feankmeyer's shorts, and I
believe I watched two thousands Little Oh Tech. But a
lot of this kind of blends together. But I know
that I had never watched Alice, so I've been seeing
it on the rental shelf for years. Yeah. For for me, um,

(17:20):
it was all about stop motion growing up. UM. I
still love stop motion. It's still one of my favorite
mediums of just filmmaking in general. But you know, as
you know, I have a big background in um animation
for film and television, and it's just such a beautiful, expensive,
time consuming process, and I just I just adore that

(17:41):
it exists, like like by every standard of like um,
you know, financial and labor and all these other reasons
no one should do stop motion, but people want it
to exist, so people make it exist, you know, And
and so I really respect that, and uh yeah, that's
just false in that camp for me, I feel like
I've seen multiple documentaries where at some point there's the visionary,

(18:06):
there's the artist who says I want to make a
full length stop motion film, and someone is telling them, no,
you really don't want to do this. You should not
do this. Yeah, it's like you you don't have the money,
you don't have the time. You know that the audience
doesn't exist for it. Like, for example, my favorite stop
motion studio right now, not a surprise, is like they're
based out of Portland, Oregon. They make wonderful films. Um,

(18:28):
I'd have to double check to make sure these numbers
are correct, but at least last time I checked every
single Like a stop motion film has become less and
less profitable, has made a smaller profit every single time.
That's not a way that that you can run a business.
But they keep doing it, and I thank them for
that because I love their films, you know, and it's

(18:50):
I love I just love stop motion. I think it's
a wonderful process and and it's aesthetics really just appeal
to me now as as a as a child or
a young filmmaker yourself. Did you did you do any
stop motion? Did you make any little experimental films? I did?
I did? Um. I literally remember the first one I
ever did, which was with some playto um a camera

(19:13):
like literally just a camera camera, and um, I think
it was like a ninja turtle toy and it was
about a guy getting hit in the head with a
meteor and so then I had to use it like
a flipbook and to have it all come together. And
this is when I was gosh, maybe like seven or eight,
and it didn't really work. You know, the idea of
like having the camera like, you know, locked down, did I?

(19:34):
I did. Didn't understand that yet. And you know how
many frames you really need to like you know, experience
uh that that your eye to like see the motion itself,
twelve frames per second, all that jazz. No, no, no,
I didn't know any of that. Um. But then when
I did get into college, and you know, I my
my my animation studios at my university had like all
the equipment. Of course, I hopped right on it. One

(19:56):
of my favorites I ever did. This is kind of
cheating when it comes to stop motion, but I made
a short film using a light bright as stop motion,
which I loved. I thought thought that was it turned
out so beautifully, it was so much fun to do,
and um but yeah, yeah, no, I love stop motion
and uh yeah, people rarely pay me for it because

(20:17):
people can't afford it. But in my own time, and
for my own like student films and stuff, I would
use it all the time. The kids today have it,
I guess a lot easier to experiment with it because
I know my my own son has done some stop
motion experimentation because they have apps that can help with it. Uh.
And so I've I've seen some of these that he's
done where there's some sort of like Plato or Lego

(20:38):
creature crawling around and doing something. You know, isn't it
not super long? But I was really impressed when I
saw it. And and who knows, maybe twenty years from
now he'll be coming to me and saying, Dad, I
need I need some help financing my feature length stop
motion animation film. Exactly. We can only hope now. UM.

(21:09):
I also just want to make a point here again,
we can't go We could spend a whole, a whole
lot of time talking about John smenc Meyer uh, and
I don't want to. I also don't want to want
to over stress his importance. I don't want to state
that like he is check stop motion animation because check
puppetry and uh and subsequently um stop motion animation. And

(21:32):
this goes back quite a while, and there there are
other big names in check stop motion summer contemporaries, um
of spank Meyer. But then you also have some that
kind of predate him, such as Jerry trunka who nineteen
twelve through nineteen sixty nine. Who Um. I'm not super
familiar with his work either, but I know that he
did a lot of like children's stop motion animated films
for the check market. All right. As we mentioned, this

(21:55):
is of course based on the work of Lewis Carroll.
Lewis Carroll this was the name of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson,
who lived eighteen thirty two through, best remembered for Alice
in Wonderland from eighteen sixty five, It's sequel Through the
Looking Glass from eighteen seventy one, and such poems as
Jabberwocke from eighteen seventy one. His style is often described

(22:16):
as literary nonsense, but he was also an inventor of games,
as well as both an academic and recreational mathematician. He
suffered from migrains, which has often been discussed in connection
with some of his more hallucinatory ideas, and we actually
have a migraine aura that is called Alice in Wonderland syndrome.
The details of his personal life have been subject to

(22:38):
much speculation and analysis over the years, leading to a
various darker interpretations of his life and work. We see
this reflected as well in such films as Night five,
Dream Child, in which Dodgson is played by Ian Holme.
All Right, we're gonna get into the cast of this film,
but it's it's it's not gonna take a lot of time. Alice.
The physical performance is played by a child actor named

(23:03):
Christina Quotova. This is her only acting credit, but I
will say she's quite good in the film. The film
really ultimately demands a lot of her. She's constantly crawling
into and through things, interacting with sets and props that
involved things like broken glass and um, yeah, I'm just

(23:24):
gonna assume everything was was safe. But watching this, you
do and part of it is like the you know,
they're very believable fears like oh, don't don't get too
close to the glass, don't be careful handling that, I
don't know that that that jar of jam that also
has thumbtacks in it, things like that. But so she

(23:44):
often feels slightly imperil without it being like a real
movie peril feeling. But anyway, she's quite good. I also
really thought multiple times, like, wow, you've got a great
like silent actor vibe going, you know, like just pulling
perfect faces is at perfect moments. Um, just just just
very believable as this child and also very like I

(24:07):
guess relatable to like like like she she doesn't feel
like she's acting despite the fact that the artifice is
very clear in this film, Like it's it's right up
front from the first words, which we'll we'll get to later. Yeah,
the way that Alice is betrayed, the way that this
performance works is that you don't have you don't have
often in kids films where kid is interacting with some

(24:29):
sort of a puppet or other um, you know, artificial
creature or even like some sort of a clown or
fantastic character, you know, there's sometimes kind of a laughable
quality to it, like a like an oh shucks kind
of cuteness to it. But Alice is it's pretty serious
through most of the film. A lot of time we
have a lot of these shots of her staring directly
through the camera's lens at some wondrous site, and she

(24:53):
has has this very kind of serious look. That's kind
of this this kid's face that has a lot of
analysis and suspicion, that kind a face where like you're
at the supermarket or something and a child is staring
at you from a from a cart, you know, a
child you don't know, and they're just looking at you
like they're they're they're trying to figure you out, but
they are very suspicious of you. That's well put. Yeah,

(25:14):
so that too, I think adds to the vibe of
the film. Now, I think we you watched the English
language version as well, didn't you? Or did you watch
a dub version? The version I have is a DVD
where there are no other language options other than dubbed
into English with an English actor. That's the only version

(25:34):
that I have. Okay, that's that seems to be the
case with the version I watched as well. The voice
of Alice in this is the voice of Camilla power Born.
She's an Irish born English actress who appeared in various
British TV productions over the years, including Whitechapel, Waterloo Road
and Hornblower Duty. She also appears in the Black Mirror

(25:59):
episode Shut Up Dance, which was a pretty dark one
that that that one's really good. One of my favorites
about Shut Up and Dance is that it's one of
the few Black Mirror episodes that have nothing um supernatural
and nothing science fiction about them. That they are it's
it's all science fact. What happens and Shut Up and
Dance could happen tomorrow period. You know, it's it's frightening. Yeah. Yeah.

(26:22):
The the only thing really speculative about it is sort
of the I don't know the the how intricate the
situation is, but that alone doesn't make it unbelievable. Yeah. Yeah. Uh.
The The other interesting thing about Camilla Power is that
she played Jill Pole in the TV adaptation of C. S.
Lewis's Narnia book The Silver Chair, alongside Tom Baker who

(26:47):
played puddle Glom and Warwick Davis who played glim Feather.
I love these BBC adaptations for the late eighties early nineties.
Did you watch these two? Yeah? I remember watching these
like during the middle of summer day on a on
a PBS channel that we were receiving via antenna. So
you already have that sort of that that you know,

(27:07):
that that British TV style that is very much in
effect in these productions, and then also it was partially
scrambled via antenna. Yeah. Yeah, now they're they're they're really
great and um they've actually gotten all for some reason.
In all the adaptations of the Narnia books, uh, very
few ever actually finished the series. Most people get one

(27:28):
or two in then they realize that it's an uphill
battle for those last few books, they just stop. This
one got further than most. I think this one got
at least four maybe five books in so um because
they combined some stories into one, which which helps with that.
But uh, yeah, it's it's it's a fun one. If
anyone's ever looking for like a really corny eighties adaptation, uh,

(27:48):
look up the BBC Narnia. I guess, I guess they
called it a mini series back then. They're long, they
have really like handmade special effects, and the acting is
very like community theater. It's it's great. Yeah. I remember
the final battle in the Narni in the Lion, the
Witch and the Wardrobe, the first one. It has like
really kind of poorly integrated Uh, it's like traditional animation

(28:12):
utilized in the battle for some of the creatures. It
looks like our heroes are just kind of like swatting
it flies and then yeah, there's just these ghosts which
aren't really interacting at all, just kind of swirling on screen.
It's um, it's it's it's great. Yeah. I watched it
with my my son after we watched the more recent
Narnia film, which of course is a special effects laden,

(28:35):
big budget affair, and um, he's still He definitely was like, well,
this doesn't look quite as real, but but he also
I think you found it very amusing now that this
is interesting. Um. The Dutch version of Alice features the
voice of Harris van Houten as well. Uh, this is

(28:56):
not the version we watched, but it's notable trivia because
van Howden is a Dutch actor, probably best known in
English film for her role as Melissandra in the Game
of Thrones series. That's pretty amazing. So yeah, I wonder
how old she was. I I can't do the math
in my mind, and I refused to, but but yeah

(29:16):
that that' that would be interesting as well, because because
she does have such like a kind of matching the
the physical actor kind of like that sternness as Melissandra.
So yeah, that that that'd be interesting. To see. Yeah,
because Alice in this film, and I guess like Alice
traditionally as well, like Atlas, is going to stand up
to weird, fantastic creatures that are being ridiculous. Uh, you know,

(29:36):
she's not gonna take any crap off of these things. Now,
Normally at this point we tend to highlight somebody involved
in the music, but again, there's not really any music
in this film, at least not for the vast majority
of it, so there's no credited composer. But I did
want to at least highlight the sound credits, which go
to Robert Johnson and Evo Spougege in particular has a

(29:59):
ton of it's mostly check films, but he also worked
on a dus Um. Again, I think there were singling
out because the sound and folly work I thought was
was pretty incredible. There's a great deal of rooting around
in this film. Alice is constantly exploring drawers, cramped spaces,
and strange potentially dangerous objects. Reanimated and decaying taxidermide animals

(30:23):
are constantly doing the same thing. And so for the
you know, the whole film, in lieu of music, we
kind of have this ambient industrial soundscape of noises that
all there reminded me a lot of the Folly Work
and Planet of the Vampires. There's something kind of almost
hypnotic about it. There's almost kind of an A S. M. R. Effect.
At least that's the way I felt listening to these

(30:44):
various sound effects. Yeah, it's like what's happening on the screen.
Not only are you hearing the sound, but the sound
is like almost within you. It's like right around you.
It's it's it's much louder than it should be in
a realistic adaptation of what's happening on screen. But but no, no,
it works perfectly because it is not only is it

(31:05):
so important to a story with very little dialogue and
no music, but it's so important because these extra i'll
call them heightened noises match the heightened visuals perfectly. Like um,
but like when these scissors clank, it is a rusty, dirty,
loud pair of scissors on screen and in your ear

(31:27):
that that they match. Yeah, it definitely helps bring the
visuals to life. And I was also thinking about how
it's interesting that we have a film with again creatures
and things and sights and sets that that one might
be attempted to interprets creepy or even scary, But the
sounds in the film, the soundscape doesn't push you in

(31:50):
either direction. Like you could imagine a version of this
film where you have like ridiculous, cute, disarming music to
sort of say, hey, this white rabbit, it's not creepy,
listen because listen to the music. Or the other side
of that, of course, is really like, you know, turn
the wheel in the direction of the dark and have
something some creepy sound effects that make everything seem creepier

(32:12):
than they are. Instead, no, the the visuals are kind
of uh, you know, left um unaugmented by music, and
you're I guess you're more inclined to sort of take
them at face value and also see them more purely
through the lens of how Alice interacts with them. And
I think it matches the subject matter and especially this

(32:32):
adaptation of the subject matter, very well, because I mean, ultimately,
the story of Alice in Wonderland is an internal story.
It's one individual girl, a lot of internal dialogue, a
lot a lot of running monologue with her, and it's
what she thinks, what she feels. It's all very internal
and in this adaptation, it's all also taking place more

(32:54):
or less in a single household. Therefore, it is it
does feel like an abandoned child old thinking to herself.
And if that's if that's the case, you don't have score.
It is a child thinking up everything by herself. That
it feels more accurately lonely to have no score. And
these heightens, you know, very imaginative sound effects. We mentioned

(33:18):
already that in these these bits of narration where Alice
says something like the Mad Hatter said, or Alice thought
to herself, we see her her lips, her mouth moving.
And I don't know how much of this is a
product of like remastered film, uh, but but I think
this was intentional. Surely the lips are a little bit chapped,

(33:38):
the teeth are of course their children's teeth, as they're
a little bit crooked, they're they're a little bit stained.
And I feel like that kind of matches up with
this this idea that you just mentioned of like, um,
almost a wild child, a child that is that has
maybe not had as much parental uh supervision and attention
and therefore is retreating more into the imagined world. That

(34:00):
this is just purely anecdotal connections in my mind. But um,
there's this episode of Breaking Bad where Jesse is like
trying to be a tough guy. So he's gonna go
get his money that he's owed by so and so
blah blah blah. And when he gets there, there's this heartbreaking,
you know, little child who lives in squalor. And it's
just this, this this little boy is just by himself

(34:22):
making do with you know, no resources in a filthy
like hovel of a home. That's what it reminds me of.
With Alice, there is in many ways it does feel
like an abandoned child just making do with what she has. Yeah,
and that that that's not too belittle this, this poor
fictional child in Breaking Bad. My heart goes out for
that poor fictional child. All right, well, let's let's get

(34:43):
into the plot of Alice. So to begin with, Um,
this story begins just like the book does. And and
I guess I'll say in advance that basically the adaptation
is very close to the source material. There there are
big chunks that have been exercised and are just moved
without even mentioning that they've been removed. But for the

(35:03):
most part, if it happened in the book, it's adaptation
on screen is pretty similar. Obviously, the circumstances in which
it's like, you know, adapted, are very different. You know
that there is no real world other than what happens
in this one kind of run down house. But but
but it's it's pretty accurate for one to one. So
the as the book begins, so do we. We begin

(35:25):
with Alice and her sister sitting along the river bank.
The sister is reading a book and Alice has a
bunch of rocks in her lap and she's throwing them
into the river one by one. I liked the detail,
and this made even more sense later when I was
reminded of some of the plot elements. But the sister's
face or head is never seen. We see her from
the She's just from the neck down, which which I

(35:48):
thought was nice because there's the sense like there's no
attention there for Alice. This is not someone who's regarding
Alice really as a as as a as a as
a human being, or or or or anything. But then
also of we have the whole off with their head
thing later, which perhaps reflects this as well. So keep
this scene in mind, listeners, will We'll be back to
it in just a moment. But so my first thoughts

(36:11):
are that this is a very age appropriate Alice, which
I appreciate quite often Alice is depicted as quite a
bit older, which you know, I mean, we all have
childlike wonder in our lives. But I think the big
point with the Alice story is that she is literally
a child making do with a child's logic. And you know,
I mean like I've seen adaptations where, like, you know,
an adult Kate Beck and Sale is playing Alice, which

(36:34):
is fun at all, but it just it's it's not
quite the same, you know what, When it's a legitimate
child child, I just think the story works better. And uh,
I also like that this this child isn't like cutesie precocious.
She's kind of bratty and kind of just like selfish
and like a fun realistic way, like she feels like
a real child. So in this, you know, selfish brady

(36:58):
kind of a point of view. Are are our hero?
Alice is just reaching over starts playing with her sister's book,
just kind of like flipping the pages like a flip book,
and her sister reaches over and slaps her hand immediately
we get our first close up of Alice's mouth as
she says Alice thought to herself, and then we cut

(37:20):
to Alice as the title screen. Uh. Now we go
back to the Alice mouth and now here here's what
she says, which is just a wonderful way to start
a film. Alice thought to herself, Now you will see
a film. And this just breaks the fourth wall immediately,
letting us all know that we're all on the same
page here. And uh, then these more title cards just

(37:43):
kind of interrupt Alice's speech as she's talking, and then
she says made for children perhaps, but I nearly forgot.
You must close your eyes otherwise you won't see anything.
Great way to set up this story, keeping it kind
of non sensical, um, making sure that we know that
everyone's on board with being fantasy. That you get it.

(38:07):
It turned out great. Oh yeah, and as we mentioned
this internal dialogue verb description, it will continue for the
entire film, So anytime someone says or thinks or does anything,
it's it's it's it's coupled with Alice's close up mouth
saying Alice thought, Alice said, etcetera. And it Uh. I

(38:31):
liked how it gave it a formal, almost ritualistic air,
you know, like, um, you know, I get some sort
of religious right that's taking place here, I guess it.
It also reminded me of refrains from works like you know,
quote The Raven Nevermore, that sort of thing, And it's
a great way to interpret. Like I said, what is
a very internal story. How how do you do that

(38:53):
without just simple voice you know, voice over, which is
kind of kind of the standard option. In fact, I
remember back when UM Walt Disney did their very famous
adaptation of Alice in Wonderland. When they initially released it
to theaters, it failed, It was not as successful as
they wanted it to be. And when asked about it,
Walt Disney said, oh, well, it's too much of an
internal story. And he said it's also he also, I

(39:16):
think blamed Alice's lack of like proactive action taking. But
but ultimately it is despite the fact that is it's
adapted perpetually. It is kind of a hard thing to
adapt the internal monologue of of of this child, you know, yeah, yeah,
how do you how do you make or feel like
a full fledged character and not just this um, you know,

(39:38):
agentless observer of weird things, especially as most filmmakers consider
a voice over to be a lazy way. You know,
it's it's it's telling, not showing. So that's that's that's tough.

(40:00):
So so now remember where we were. She was sitting
on the river banks with her sister. These opening credits
happened real quick, and now boom, Alice is now indoors.
We see some quick establishing shots panning around the room
at you know, it's decrepit nature, discarded apple cores, peeling wallpaper,
chip paint, old mouse traps. Uh. And then we see

(40:21):
these two very frightening old dolls sitting side by side,
and one of the dolls has a lap full of rocks,
which now Alice is is picking up from the dolls
lap and tossing into a half drunk teacup. So there
we go, even this nice gentle opening of of of
river banks and sisters reading. No, it's just Alice by

(40:44):
herself with two dolls being alone, just just not really.
Just get used to it, folks, where we're gonna have
a lot of Alice by herself using her imagination. So uh,
the only sound we were hearing right now is a
loud ticket clock and it's just Alice sitting by herself
until until suddenly we hear a creaking off screen, so

(41:06):
Alice looks up to see what what what that sound is,
and there is a taxidermied white rabbit in sort of
like a glass diorama type situation with like you know,
it's scientific name labeled and all that stuff what you
would find in a museum or collector's home. And this
rabbit is has come to life and is struggling against
the nails holding it in position inside this class diorama. Yes, yes,

(41:30):
this scene is just fabulous. This is the one where
after I finished the film, I had to go back
and rewatch this film immediately because it's just so good
with like the every detail of this rabbit, from the
eyes to its you know, protruding teeth, to the the
way the way it deals with those little nails stuck

(41:51):
through its hand. And also again I'll probably drive this
home multiple times, but this scene is not as creepy
as as it may sound when we're just describing it.
There's a lot more whimsy and humor to it. And
when we refer to these taxidermied creatures, none of them
are done very well they all have that uncanny look

(42:12):
of something that's been poorly taxidermied. So keep that in
mind if you haven't seen this, like really bugged out
glass eyes. Yeah, too much, too much view, like the
teeth or to expose. Uh, most of them I think
are also visually falling apart, like they're stuffing coming out
of them and so forth. So, so the white rabbit

(42:34):
is struggling, struggling, struggling. He finally gets free, uh, and
he pulls up, revealing two giant nails protruding from each palm.
So it reaches up with its giant rabbit teeth, bites
off the nails and spits them to the floor. And
then it pulls a drawer of clothing up from the
ground inside of the diorama. So already starting with that

(42:56):
that like you know, mythical Oh it's larger on the inside,
kind of lodge now. Uh. It then gets dressed from
the clothing inside of the drawer. It takes a large
pair of scissors out of the drawer and then breaks
the surrounding glass at the diorama to make an escape.
And this scene, too is just the stop motion work

(43:16):
is tremendous, and the and the fantasy of the whole
thing is also splendid, Like all the details of like
pulling on the gloves, I love because you can you
clearly see it has it's it's a taxidermy rabbit, so
it has rabbits appendages. But as the glove comes on,
and the glove is is stretched fully on, it's able
to then flex all the little fingers in the gloved hand.

(43:38):
And just every detail in this is so beautifully rendered.
Now no one calamity that has occurred, uh, will repeat
throughout the throughout the film. Is that in his attempts
to escape the this white rabbit has torn a little uh,
I guess, just a little fissure. I I don't know
what to call it. He's got a little hole now

(44:00):
worn in his chest which is leaking um sawdust. That
this this will repeat many many times. That there are
a few repeating gags. That's one of them, for sure.
Another one which I won't draw too much attention to,
but is is funny. Every time Alice tries to open
a drawer, the knob falls off. It's pointless, doesn't really

(44:21):
advance the story. It just contributes to our our character,
Alice falling on the ground often yeah, uh so, So
we get our first um oh dear, oh dear, I
shall be late from the white rabbit, but it's voiced
by Alice, and then once again we are treated to
another up close mouth shots of her explaining the white

(44:42):
rabbit said. The rabbit then runs off, and now the
room has magically expanded and we are now outdoors in
a giant, craggy dirt field with just a little uh
desk drawer sitting right in the middle. She goes up
to it, tries to take off the drawer. Of course,
the knob falls off, she falls down, She pries it open,

(45:03):
and then crawls through the drawer, once again showing that
we are in a mythical, magical world at this point.
If you're familiar with the Alice in Wonderland story, you
can more or less tell where we're headed at this point.
We're headed towards the Alice falling down the rabbit hole.
This whole scene kind of just mirrors that. We next
see the white rabbit eating a bowl full of sawdust,

(45:24):
presumably replenishing what has leaked out, But he has not
yet sown closed the the chest wound, so the sawdust
just keeps pouring out as he eats it. Again, not
as creepy as it sounds, but you know, he's in
a hurry. He doesn't have time to just stop and
and and and pay a lot of attention to this
gaping hole in his chest. Better to just have a

(45:47):
quick snack of sawdust and then keep moving. He also
stores his pocket watch in this hole in his chest,
so every time he takes it out, he has to
lick the sawdust off the front glass of his pocket watch. Yes,
white rabbit runs off, and then so Alice passes by
the sawdust and I'll try that. She has a couple

(46:08):
of bites singing up. I don't like it, yeah her again.
Her childlike curiosity kind of gets her into trouble at times,
and he seemed to like it. Yeah, I like the
rabbit is eating. I'm gonna try it. Or this looks
like jam, of course, I'm going to try and see
what it tastes like. So Alice then pulls a classic

(46:29):
sideshow bob move. She steps on an upturned rake. It
flings up and hits her in the face, and then
she falls backwards into a cooking pot, which then turns
into a portal which she then falls through, and we're
now in uh absolutely a a descending elevator scene which
very closely mirrors the followed down a rabbit hole. Yeah,

(46:51):
this is the one. Whether it's like she's going down
and they're all these just shelves of of things, right Like,
it's a lot of it looks like like very old
preserved foods, but also maybe preserve specimens, and then also
jars of like random dangerous looking crafting supplies. And then

(47:14):
sometimes there's a merger of the two, like you see
more than once in this film. You see what looks
like like bread like bagats or or and so forth
that have like nails emerging from them, or tax stuck
in that stuck in them. And this is where we
get something you mentioned before, which is one of my
favorite I supposed to give Joe Credit a rub the
fir moment Alice is descending in this elevator, she reaches

(47:39):
out and she grabs just a jar of marmalade off
a shelf as she passes, as she does in the
book as well, but unlike the book, she she examines
it and it's a jar of marmalade with a saran
wrap top. She takes her finger and all of this
is the sound design is wonderful, which takes her finger
punctures the suran rap brings up a big finger full
of the marmalade, and there's a giant thumbtack on her

(48:01):
finger and it's just like wow, Like the the feelings
that you get from seeing this and and hearing this
is just out of this world. So so yeah, she
doesn't want this. Thankfully, she does not eat the thumb
tac what are the few things she doesn't eat? And
then she puts it back on the shelf and we
can continue with our story. And this of course leads

(48:22):
to the the big hall of Doors scene where you know,
there's a key on a table and you know, she
she's first figuring out that she can be too big
and too small to eat me, drink me all that stuff. Now,
like we mentioned, uh, when she does change into a
a small character, you know, like like it's often shown

(48:43):
in the book, she turns into a creepy old doll
with with stop motion stuff. But instead of a little
you know, cherry cordial or whatever it is that that
is the drink that she drinks, it's a bottle of ink.
She just pops that cork drinks it down like I
she first she tests it, she dips her finger in
like said, oh, this is fine, and then she drinks

(49:05):
it so yeah that the drinking the bottle of ink
makes her shrink. Then she's gonna wants to go through
this beautiful door to get to the big, beautiful garden
like from the book. But of course in this adaptation,
there is no beautiful garden. It's like a very small,
like almost like doll house exterior, kind of like it's

(49:27):
it's like a tiny little stage play diorama, that's what
it looks like. But she sees the white rabbits and
there she wants to go there too. She doesn't have
the key, darnet now and you get big And then
this is one of the first appearances of these very
creepy looking cakes that the traditional eat meat cake. And
I can't tell what it is. It looks kind of
like minced meat, maybe caviare What did you think it was, Robert, Yeah,

(49:51):
I got kind of it's weird because on one, it
doesn't look inedible to me. Uh, it looks like maybe
there's some sort of a mincemeat or um or some
sort of very brown, very type of thing, you know,
going on maybe ground dates. But then there's something on
top that I guess is a like a sliver of
a nut or something, perhaps, yeah, some sort of seed,

(50:15):
but it also kind of looks like a tooth, yes,
and it makes it look very strange. Yeah, But she
eats it, and of course she grows big. Now she
can reach the key, but now she's too big to
go through the door, etcetera, etcetera. Y'all know this story.
But she starts to cry, and now she has cried
an entire ocean. Uh she she she shrinks down a

(50:36):
bit again. And now here's here's here's here's a wonderful part.
I absolutely love this if you know the book. Next up,
we get a mouse swim by in this giant ocean
of tears. Now this, this mouse has decided it's time
to rest, you know, trying to make some lunch. So
it goes up to this island that it sees, which
is Alice's head bobbing in the water. Not even like
discreetly bobbing, it's just a child's head. But no, no, no,

(50:58):
the mouse crawls upon top, hammers steaks into her head
and then sets up a hole. I mean, this is
a step by step process of this mouse setting up
a campfire, uh, setting up a meal, opening cans with
a tiny little can opener, dropping its little like cooking

(51:20):
pot into the water, and bringing it up with a rope.
And Alice is just kind of watching, kind of bufuddled,
kind of curious this whole time. And then and then
the mouse reaches down with a little scythe and it
cuts some hair off from Alice's head, and it's about
to prepare a fire to cook its food on top
of Alice's head. And this is when Alice goes, now

(51:40):
that's too far. Yeah, I mean she dunks in. Yeah,
everything else was fine, hammering steaks into my head and
all that's fine. But no, no, no, you're not starting
a fire with my hair. Please? Now was this base?
Was this particular part from the book? It is, except
it did not happen on top of her head. Basically,

(52:03):
she was in the Ocean of Tears. She was lost,
swimming swimming, and a creature swims by and she thinks, oh,
it's quite large. It must be like a dog or
a giant bear or something. And then she realizes it's
a mouse, and she's like, oh, I must be very small.
Then the mouse guides her and this leads to the
caucus race scene in the book, where it's basically the
mouse explains what it's like to be a mouse, why

(52:25):
it's trouble, etcetera, etcetera. But so so he skips some
of that. But yeah, yeah, the mouse making an island
and cooking on her head is not from from the book. Yeah,
the steaks being your scalp boy, that was a real
That was one of the many moments in the film
where I was yelping a little bit. Even though she's
she's she takes it in stride, she's not in terror
or anything. But I was like, uh, so, the the

(52:50):
rabbits is now seen in this ocean after she has
scared off the mouse. He's in a little rowboat, he's
got some cakes with him, etcetera. If you've never read
this story before, the whole book is her chasing this
white rabbit. It is this mcguffin that she has chosen
in her childlike mind that this is the goal. I
need to follow this white rabbit wherever it goes. I'm
sure you all know that already. Um, But when she

(53:14):
sees the rabbit. The rabbit accidentally just like rows its
boat directly into her, and he drops a plate of
these cakes again, these weird dark brown, sticky seed toothcakes.
She eats one, she shrinks way down and then you
know it's it's it's it just it just continues from there.

(53:34):
Suddenly we are we are in a new scene. She's
come up on the shore and she finally gets out
that door and gets to where she's going. Now the
white rabbit, just like in the book, sees her and goes, hey,
Mary Anne, because because the white rabbit has confused her
for the servants, now that she has shrunk down to
his his height. Uh now in the book, he goes,

(53:54):
please get me my fan and gloves. But no, no,
this is a much scarier adaptation. Go fed me a
new pair of scissors because he lost his during the
the Ocean of Tears seen. So she does, and oh no,
this this house, it's it's a bit like a house
of blocks that that on on the exterior, very beautiful.

(54:15):
Everything will be made of just things found around the
house throughout this whole story. But um, inside the house
are just weird skeleton monstrosities. Um like I guess these
aren't really in the house. They're mostly around the exterior.
But there are fish heads with big goggly taxes, dr
me eyes and little feet from another creature. There's like

(54:37):
a taxidermied alligator with giant rodent skulls instead of alligator schools.
These are all the um uh, if we're again, if
we're looking to the books, these are the other servants
that work for the White Rabbit. There's a bill, a handyman.
There's a few others of some guinea pigs, etcetera, etcetera. Yeah,
this is a fabulous, fabulous sequence where we basically get

(54:58):
a siege scene. Alice is inside the toy house and
the White Rabbit and the various reanimated minions of the
White Rabbit are trying to get inside, and there's a
lot of wonderful, strange stuff that happens, like at one point,
the white rabbits climbing up a ladder with a with
a saw and acts like he's gonna I guess I'll

(55:19):
saw her arm off, and she's like, no get away,
and she's wats him down and he falls through a
plate of glass. It's just wonderful. Of course, Alice is
changing in size perpetually throughout this scene as she is
want to do so. So the siege continues, and Rabbit
officially sends up a bill um. In the books, he

(55:40):
is a lizard. In our adaptation, he is an alligator
with a rodent skull, and to climb up the roof
and go down the chimney. Alice shooes him away. He
falls and gets hurt. And then this is just an
odd little, you know, tableau that we see here. Can
you describe it? Rob Oh? Yeah? They so he gets
the gator eat your bill here, gets his torso ripped

(56:02):
open a bit, and of course sawdust comes out, spills out,
and so the all the animals stop the siege. Mint
for a minute. They stopped the siege, and they starts
like trying to re stuff him, to revive him. At
one point they have a uh, they have like a
funnel in his mouth and they're pouring sawdust in it.
You know, gotta gotta try and and resuscitate him here.

(56:24):
But it's a prolonged sequence. It also feels like semi
religious because maybe it's sort of the way that the
bill is laid across the white Rabbit's knee I think
kind of like Mary holding the body of Christ after
the crucifixion. Yeah, no, I I thought the same things.
And yeah, it's it's very sweet and very strange the

(56:44):
whole time. But but I love a couple of little
animation choices, like, for example, when Bill is stretched out
being being fed the news sawdust and having his stomach
stitched up, we see Bill's skeleton eyes blink several times,
communicating to us the viewer, Oh, Bill's fine. This isn't
like a grotesque stitching up of a dead creature. No, no, no,

(57:06):
this is live. Bill is fine, and he's just being
helped by the White rabbits. Yeah. So many little little
touches like that that add that little element of whimsy
that keeps the sequence from straying too far into like
the weird and potentially dark, keeping it within that realm
of wonder. So Alice at this current moment is now

(57:37):
in her shrunken doll state. She has escaped to the
White Rabbit's house, and now she is running away from
this gang of skeleton monsters. Uh. In this pursuit, she
falls into a vat of I'm gonna call it milk,
but it's a milk like substance, whatever it may be.
And immediately she regrows to her full human height, but

(57:58):
oddly and amazingly, she has an incredibly creepy doll mask
over her human face, which is just shocking to see. Yeah,
you see her eyes, her her human eyes staring out
of it. So it's this, it's like a costume doll
death mask. And then we get we get this scene

(58:19):
where it what it what it falls down into the
or they what they kind of intumbate within a closet, right, Yeah,
because when she grows up into this doll creature whatever
it is that she turned into, inexplicably she's fully paralyzed.
So this skeleton gang has the opportunity to kind of
um oh Guliver's travel style knock over. The giants tie

(58:40):
her up and drag her, and they lock her in
a closet. Why most of this is happening, I don't know,
but it makes sense. You see a monster, you lock
it up in the closet. But then she emerges, she
breaks out of this thing, and uh, and it's another
great sequence because of course she's dressed inside the sarcophagus,
She's dressed like the certain the doll on the outside

(59:01):
of the sarcophagus. So it's it's really weird. It's so strange.
Just yeah, it's like she was a cocoon and her
exterior was her, but now she's inside of her, crawling
out of her. It's beautifully done. Very strange. What one
one of the otter shots in this whole thing. Uh. So,
now that she's locked in the closet, she looks around

(59:22):
trying to figure out what she can do to to
perhaps get out or just hey where am i? And
she sees a lot of strange things. Uh. There are
a bunch of look like chickens eggs, but when they hatch,
these little eggs are are bringing forth exclusively skulls, and
they crawl around and chomp around a bit. It's beautiful. Uh.

(59:44):
We see some of that nail bread and we can
see some stop motion bread that she picks up, uh,
like growing nails, which is beautiful. She'll open a can
with a can opener and it'll be full of cockroaches.
Oh yeah, it's full of giant cockroaches. That was as
a bit much. Then there'll be a jar with a
raw meats tongue just kind of flopping about the raw

(01:00:07):
meats animation is some of the more grotesque in this thing.
And yet and yet it's it's not like attacking or
threatening and just kind of doing its own going about
its own business. So it's not as weird as the
I think there's a crawling steak scene and Poultergeist, if
memory serves right, Yeah, it's it's it's whimsical still, And

(01:00:27):
ultimately she finds a sardine can, opens it up with
exerdine can opener, and there's a key inside. Good, you know,
So this is what she's been rooting around for. Apparently
she knew there was a key here somewhere. She's found it,
and I love how she quite unnecessarily once she removes
the key from the sardine can, it's dripping with oil
or water probably I'm I'm assuming sardine oil is dripping

(01:00:49):
from that key before she sticks it in the door
to try it out, though, she licks it and she
kind of makes a face like, look that tasted a
little gross, and I was like, nobody told you to
do that, Alice, why don't you the key? Very believable
child moment. Yeah, let's see so Alice then then exits
the closet and just continues to search for this white rabbit.

(01:01:10):
She's going from room to room trying to find things.
She enters a room with these giant holes just board
through the wooden floorboards, just peppering all over the floor,
as if a rodent, you know, a giant rodent has
dug them out, or like like giant cartoonish termites. Yeah,
but then we see socks burrowing and undulating through the

(01:01:31):
holes as if they're like a sea serpent or worm,
and it's it's wild. Yeah. I was a little afraid
that we were going to see underneath those socks and
there's gonna be some sort of hideous worm creature, but
it's ultimately revealed. I guess that they're full of air
or nothing at all, because there's a scene where she
inflates a sock and then it crawls off like a worm.

(01:01:52):
It's true. I appreciates that, Um, a sock moving like
a worm is as gross as it gets there. There
is there is no extra skeleton inside or anything. And
then this is actually one of my favorite moments because
because I would say, this whole movie, you're basically just
like waiting for like, oh, how are they going to
do this scene like like like like what what what

(01:02:14):
elements from just sitting around an old dilapidated house are
you going to cobble together to create this scene? And
that this one, to me, I think is one of
the more successful and one of the creepier. Uh so
uh one of these socks, a pair of dentures and
a couple of taxidermy eyes kind of cobble themselves together
and they become the famous caterpillar from the Alice in Wonderland,

(01:02:37):
and it sits on a darning block. I don't know
if most people knows what these are. Basically, if you're
trying to fix a sock, you put like the sock
over like these like wooden kind of like shape that
way it's stretched out and you can like sew it's
shut to to repair a sock. So yeah, it's it's
kind of shaped like a mushroom. So the darning block
kind of sits up like a mushroom and then the

(01:02:57):
sock sits on top of it to be like, ah,
you know, hello, Alice, let's have our dialogue. I'm glad
you explained this because I I had no idea what
this object was other than oh, it looks like a
wooden mushroom, and then of course it serves as the
mushroom for this tableau for the caterpillar. But I had
no idea that that's this is object had a practical

(01:03:18):
real world application. Yeah, yes, yeah, if the listeners don't
know what I'm talking about. Picture kind of like a
door knob, but made of wood and looking like a mushroom. Yeah,
it's like a darning block for for sewing socks. So,
as we know in the story next up, the caterpillar
tells her that one side will make her grow larger,
one side might could grow smaller. Now of the books

(01:03:38):
and other adaptations, this is just a mushroom, so you
can just pull us pull a little bit off. But no, no, no,
this is a piece of wood. So Alice gets out
her her scissors and big loud chomp chomp on each
side cuts off these little I guess uh, an exaggerated splinter,
a hunk of wood, something around the sides of like
a pencil, maybe smaller than that, like a golf pencil

(01:04:00):
worth of of, like a wooden splinter. So then that
the caterpillar goes to sleep by sewing its eyes shut
with a needle and thread, and then we continue Alice
uh takes a couple of steps outside and she wants
to test these mushroom bits a k a. Giant splinters
of wood, so she takes a little bite of one,

(01:04:21):
and this I think is one of the more beautiful
adaptations of her growing and shrinking. What it does is
instead of the character Alice getting large and small, which
we've seen many times. At this point, there are a
bunch of trees sitting in like little Christmas tree stands outside,
and when she takes a bite of one, we see
them all shoot to the sky or shrink all the

(01:04:41):
way down to saplings. And this is her doing a
little trial and air to see which piece of mushroom
makes her big and which which piece makes her small.
And so there now she has a solution to this
our Our next scene is with the Duchess. Alice is
walking and she sees a taxidermied fish and it's a
there to deliver a letter, and as we find out,

(01:05:02):
it's an invitation to a croquet game. So she goes
to the that the fish, goes to the Duchess's door
and delivers it to a taxi dermied frog This, to
me is the one scary moment in this movie when
that door slams open and we get our first like
jump scared, look at the Texas dermaed frog. I don't
know what it is, but it's just shocking, and I
think they intended it that way. Yeah, this is also

(01:05:24):
this whole sequence also has a lot of um of
baby crying in it, like that's the that's the soundscape
that we have going on here, which of course fits
the scene. It's not like it was just put in
here to make us feel uneasy, but it did add
to the uneasiness of the scene. I think, like, you
can't have that much baby crying in your film and

(01:05:46):
it not unnerved the viewer a bit. I mean, we're
just hardwired to feel on edge when you're presented with that. Now,
especially and I will say that this is a moment
when the book deviates from from what has been adapted here.
Uh in the book versions. I'm sure most of you know,
the Duchess is inside and she's dealing to this small baby.

(01:06:08):
But the baby is getting like pepper in its face
from the cook making some soup in the background. So
the baby is sneezing and crying and very upset. And
then the cook just keeps throwing cutlery and plates and
dishes and pots and pans at Alice, just to be like,
get out of here, go away. So so we hear
the din going on inside, all the shaking and plates

(01:06:28):
and cutlery being thrown around. But when Alice opens the
door to go inside, it's just the white rabbit and
a baby. So, at least for me, this is kind
of shocking because it's like, no, no, no, this is
not how this story goes. Oh, I need to be
on my toes. This isn't really going to follow what
I expect to happen. Uh. Now, so it's been the
rabbit throwing the plates and cups and all those things, which, uh,

(01:06:53):
you know, it's still scary. She runs away, she has
the baby, and then the baby turns into a pig,
just like from the book. Look that that the pig
runs away. There we are, yeah, and thankfully the baby
this the sound of a crying baby becomes predominantly the
sound of a squealing pig, which is easier to take,
yes and cuter, I would say, yeah. Then uh we

(01:07:16):
move on to probably the most famous scene from the story.
Of Alice in Wonderland. The Mad Hatter scene at the
mad Tea party. Uh, here's how they adapted it. Basically,
there's a very creepy wooden marionette of the Mad Hatter,
which is one of the more human elements we've seen
in this story so far. And the march Hare is

(01:07:37):
a very filthy wind up stuffed toy of a rabbit.
So no, no, no, no taxed on me for this
rabbit it is. It is a stuffed toy and of
course very dirty. Yeah. The scene is of course very mad,
and all the things you'd expect happen in it. Um
wow wow. So many times do they just kind of

(01:07:57):
like go in this loop, starting with the march Hair
putting butter in a watch and then he attaches the
watch to the Mad Hatter. The Mad Hatter drinks tea.
We see out the back that that that the t
is just pouring down his empty hole and out the
back of this of this marionette puppet, and then they
need clean cups. They moved down, repeat, repeat, repeat, It
just goes and goes. Yeah, this sequence goes on for

(01:08:21):
a while. This was for the most part, even though
this film has again kind of a subdued pacing to it.
It's not going to have it's his you know, art
film pacing as opposed to modern child cinema pacing. But
but for the most part, I feel like there's not
a dull moment in the whole piece. There's always something
interesting to look at. This one this one scene maybe

(01:08:42):
goes on a little too long for my taste. I
could have maybe done with just like six pocket watches
being buttered and not like eight pocket watches buttered. But
it's still it's still excellent. I I don't I don't
want to trash on it. Yeah, and I think it
does a good job of kind of um, you know,
in a very simple, subdued way, talking about you know

(01:09:03):
how uh you know, the the repetition of actions and
and and basically having this insanity be very practical and
then this storytelling. But yeah, no it works. But you're right,
it is definitely repetitive on purpose. And we see a
quick shot of the dormouse, but in this he is
not a dormouse. He is a fox stole, or at

(01:09:24):
least what I presume as a fox, some sort of
like you know, the kind of wrap that a fancy
person would wear made of fur. Um, it's not a
drunk little sleepy mouse that's cute like like we see
in the Disney animated version. It is a pealth of
some kind that crawls around on the table and licks
out the teacups. Yeah. Um, moving on. Next, of course,

(01:09:47):
Alice leaves this party. It's it's too mad for her.
She is, she's not a fan of this. Uh. The
white rabbit passes by and she chases after it, and
this brings us to the croquet scene, another very famous scene.
Now I love this because it's the most practical adaptation visually.
All of the cards from this scene are cards. They
are cut out, they are they are puppeted with like

(01:10:09):
a little just like you know, little brads. They're all
two dimensional, very flat. It's it's it's it's a great
adaptation with this. And of course, since um the Queen
of hearts big order that she says when she's upset,
off with their heads, they can actually come off because
these are paper cards and Um, in the book, we

(01:10:29):
never actually see anyone beheaded. It's like it's like understood
that she always says, go behead these people, but they
never actually kill anyone. She just forgets about it and
moves on with her life. We see the executioner, which
is the White Rabbit, pull out these giant scissors that
he's been hauling around this whole movie. That's that's his
execution device. He cuts off the heads of these cards
and they they are they are lifeless after the heads

(01:10:52):
are gone. Yeah. Yeah, he snips a number of paper
heads off and sometimes not paper heads, but he jumps
in there and execute um. So we move on to,
of course, the famous actual croquet game. Uh the the
the flamingos are start off as cards, of course, and
the hedgehogs that are being hit around his balls are

(01:11:16):
these little pin cushions, Like, oh, great, great choice. But
then things are things are starting to turn wild. Things
are starting to get a little weird as they do
towards the end of a story. The flamingos have suddenly
turned into real live chickens jumping around and are causing
mayhem in what has been a a very no no,
only Alice is alive here reality. Suddenly we have live chickens,

(01:11:40):
and then the pin cushions turned into real hedgehogs. Now
they're crawling around and it's it's it's it's a little
um surprising, a little baffling, but but but you go
along with it. And then I love this part because
it's just some very subtle commentary but very good. Uh.
The White Rabbit then walks up to Alice and gives
her a script, and it's like quick, now it's time
for the try. All let's go, and so Alice is

(01:12:03):
supposed to learn her parts, uh for her participation in
this trial. Now there's a seat maybe skipping head. But
there's also a scene here where we see the mad
Hatter in the march Hare again playing cards, right, and
their their execution is ordered. White Rabbit jumps in cuts
their heads off, but then their bodies are still alive,

(01:12:25):
and they reach around and they find, of course the
wrong head, and they put the wrong heat on top
of their body. So now we have the the march
Hare's body with the mad Hatter's head and vice versa.
And then they just continue playing cards, much like the
logic of Bill being sewn up while blinking. It's it's
like none, everybody's fine, you know. Uh. So the the

(01:12:50):
trial happens, who stole the Queen's tarts? Alice is stubborn
and doesn't want to go along with the script. She's
trying to use logic on them and spell out nobody
is guilty. That the charts are right there, and of
course these are the very ugly uh seed tooth brown
gunky tarts that we've seen throughout this story. And uh,

(01:13:12):
she wakes up just just like it goes. Alice wakes up,
but she's still in her dingy, dirty old house. That
part wasn't a dream, and um, some of the artifacts
from her dream still remain here in this what we
presume is a real real life for her. Um, the
rabbit terrarium where the taxidermy white rabbit was is still broken,

(01:13:34):
and the white rabbit is still gone. The nails that
he bit off with his rabbit teeth are still sitting there. Uh,
the drawer still exists, and there's a pair of scissors
in this drawer inside this terrarium, the rabbit scissors. So
Alice picks up the scissors, and as a as a
final line, we have Alice saying he's late as usual.
I think I'll cut his head off, thought Alice to herself,

(01:13:58):
And that's pretty much. Yeah, that's like credits. Yeah, and
it really does set up that no, this is just
all in her mind. She is, she is every one
of these creatures. And in fact, there's a visual moment
to that, kind of a company's that that's very beautiful.
When she's waking up from her dream, there's this moment
where she's kind of thrashing her head back and forth,
and her head transforms into each of the creatures briefly,

(01:14:20):
you know, Queen of Hearts for a moment, Matt Hatter
for a moment, White Rabbit for a moment right before
she wakes up, Just just quick visual cue. And then
coupled with this line of I think I'll cut his
head off something, the you know, the Queen of Hearts
would say, we go, okay, this is just a very imaginative,
imaginative girl, that this is the world she's creating. Are

(01:14:41):
we still in that world? Because look, here's still a
drawer inside a you know, a terrarium where a drawer
would not fit. And again, this is not as dark
as a nice it's really it's it's not played for darkness.
The music that plays at the very end is is
actually more light and wins the cole really one of
the few against a few touches of emotional manipulation by

(01:15:06):
the music. But but even then, it doesn't feel like
it's really augmenting the existing trajectory of the scene. It's
it's there's nothing creepy about Alice saying, well, I'm gonna
go cut that rabbit's head off now or what or whatever.
You know, it's a it's presented with this kind of
you know, childlike imaginative wonder. I think now that we
have wrapped up this story a really good elevator pitch

(01:15:27):
since we've said it so many times, it's not as
creepy as it seems. Yeah, but not uncreepy. Like if
you like, if the idea of creepy stop motion animation
appeals to you, you will love this film. There's a
lot to love in it. But if if you're afraid
of of creepy stop motion animation going too far, well

(01:15:49):
this film will probably not be going too far for
you unless you have a very low threshold. Yeah, yeah,
fully agree. It's uh and I I just find it wonderful.
I I think it's very original, very easy to watch too,
like like like it goes down easy for something that
can be really ob to, something with no dialogue deliberate pacing,
caustic sound design, and um, you know, all all the choices. Honestly,

(01:16:15):
it's actually very watchable, very simple. It's it's still just
a great film. And I think you're right when you
said perhaps because it has the blueprint of the original
book to work from, we can kind of just like
follow along much easier, you know. It's it's it's it's
an easy narrative to follow. Yeah, it's. I think it's
more watchable than than some sort of creepy stop motion

(01:16:35):
works that I've seen, Like I think particularly there's some works,
some work by Jerry Barta that I also quite like.
And it but and it's also sort of in the
realm of like strange decrepit garbage comes around, it comes
alive and starts crawling around all over the place, but
is maybe a little less accessible. And you've got to

(01:16:56):
definitely be on board for that sort of thing where
this film is kind of meeting you halfway. Yeah, yeah,
I I give this two thumbs up. All right. Well,
on that note, uh, look, I guess we're gonna go
and close this episode out, but we'd love to hear
from everyone out there if you have thoughts on Alice,
if you have thoughts on other films of full length

(01:17:18):
and short by John's Funkmeyer or any of the other
stop motion artists that we mentioned in this episode right in,
we would love to hear from you. Reminder that we're
primarily a science podcast. Here's stuff to blow your mind,
but on Fridays we set aside most serious concerns and
just talk about a weird film here on Weird House Cinema.
I blog about the movies that we cover here on

(01:17:41):
some new to music dot com and if you use
letterbox that's l E T T E R B o
x D dot com. We have a profile there it's
weird House. We have all the movies we've covered listed
there as well as sometimes there's a peak at what
movies are to come in case you want to watch ahead.
And if anyone out there is missing Joe while he's
on his paternity leave, I have a little treat for you.

(01:18:03):
An episode that he and I recorded back before he
went on his leave airs today literally today, the same
the same day, this airs of my podcast Rusty Needles
Record Club find out wherever you find podcasts and um
if people have never heard my show before. Basically, it's
a book club, but for music. Each episode is a
different album. Me and my guest discussed that album. Uh,

(01:18:26):
Joe has been on a couple of times. We're hoping
to get rob on soon in the future, and this
one was Joe's pick, and he picked the self titled
Black Sabbath album, their debut. So if you'd like to
hear me and Joe discuss Black Sabbath's debut album, yeah,
just go to wherever you get your podcasts, type in
Rusty Needles Record Club. You'll see a cartoon dog as

(01:18:49):
the logo. You'll know that's me and Yeah, listen to
me and Joe talk some Black Sabbath. Alright, that that
is seasonally appropriate. Yes, So thanks for hosting, Seth, but
also of course thanks Seth Nicholas Johnson for producing the show.
And if anyone out there wants to get in touch
with us, well just email us at contact at stuff
to Blow your Mind dot com. Stuff to Blow Your

(01:19:16):
Mind is production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts
for My Heart Radio, visit the i Heart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.