Alice

(aka Neco z Alenky)

Whether you've read the books, seen the Disney movie, the porn adaptation or one of the neverending films that was heavily influenced by the story (Labyrinth instantly springs to mind), you know the basic story of Alice in Wonderland. Even so, you've never seen anything like this interpretation! Although it remains very faithful to Lewis Carroll's source novel, director Jan Svankmajer chose to focus on the dark elements of the story in this near-masterpiece. This time around, Alice (Kristýna Kohoutová) finds herself trapped in a Wonderland that exists in her dreary home when a dead, stuffed white rabbit springs to life, dismounts itself, sets off for a grim adventure, and other toys and objects in her home soon follow suit. Kohoutová is basically the only live-action person seen in the film; the rest of the characters were filmed in a jerky stop-motion process.

The visuals are incredible, the use of sound is amazing (there's not a traditional musical score), and in my mind, the film is practically perfect... but not quite. A few of the segments stretch on longer than they should and Svankmajer made the disasterous decision to include narration. Not just any narration, (said Vinnie,) but narration that includes close-ups of Kohoutová's mouth anytime a character utters a word. It's sad because, in addition to being sloppily dubbed into English, the narration takes you out of the action at critical moments and becomes increasingly tedious as the film progresses. Although the narration is a major point of contention, everything else about the movie is so wonderfully weird and surreal that it doesn't completely destroy the film. The movie is available on DVD.