I've heard people say this movie is layered with symbolism..and after watching it so many times i still cant figure out what its saying!!
I get the idea its kinda taking the idea of alice eating the food to make her bigger or smaller..then theres the rabbit that keeps eating or its insides spill out..and then theres the jam etc with the nails in..
Is it some kind of comment on things we take into our body?.on food as a symbolic thing?
Ohh the confusion..
better to take what you yourself know, and synthesise it, in order to create, your own theories. because others will have an agenda, conscious or unconscious, in their exegeses. reading their opinions without a strong skeptical sense might expose you to some propagandas. of course, that means that i must have an ulterior motive as well, so what could it postmodernly be? saving myself the trouble of doing the extensive research it'd take to objectively explain the film's symbolism, by recommending that you go the lazy route, is what! what, indeed. haha!
to be fair, though, here: just consider that alice is a little girl. do you know any freudian theory? alice's descent into wonderland mirrors the hypnogogic pre-dream state. look at the shelves just below the sign denoting "4th" floor. the cards are there, that will prefigure the queen and king of hearts whom you meet later (day residue often reappear in dreams, according to freud, albeit mangled or commingled or mixed or what have you). the film, and the tale itself, are also highly sexually charged. alice's tactiturnity and later-proven naïveté underscore the strict rules enforced by victorian development especially upon girls. sexual fantasy is just one way of rebelling, again it might be conscious or unconscious, either.
all this is just to say, that one can discover various popular critical theories played out in the work, and that this attests to their applicability and probable objective veracity. however, svankmajer's work is open, and ultimately optimistic. it is for you to decide how you would like to interpret the film, or whether you would like to interpret it at all. most importantly it should be fun. people who want you to study the symbolism are reenacting the same intellectual disciplinarianism that the alice stories are a lament of, or at the very least a litmus about. you may also find julia kristeva's theory of "the semiotic chora ordering the drives," enlightening here. for my part, it's better to approach the film simply, tho is all i'm saying.
I definitely think Alice's alienation is important to the film--every other character abuses her. Her sister slaps her, the rabbit throws things at her, and a mouse sets fire to her head. Shouldn't it be a bit relevant that the Cheshire Cat (who's innate weirdness would seem to make him an obvious choice for the mood of the film and the media) is missing? He generally functions as an ally to Alice, and that wouldn't work in this story at all.
(And yes, I know the Caterpillar gives her advice--but it also immediately shuts her out)
the characters are as adults appear to children, so it's no wonder they're not helping, isolating her etc... it kind of reminds me the state children get into when they're around lots of adults. it's like she's wandering around in a huge apartment building full of neighbors, aunts, uncles etc. and noone can guess what she's really seeing, they're just shoving her, telling her to get out, blaming her etc
shareI thought it was mainly about Alice going through puberty becoming adult and losing her childly innocence (ignorance), the inaccessible garden representing the nostalgia people feel for their childhood.
She chases the white rabbit, like people chase the answers to fundamental life questions but while chasing him she is constantly confronted with complete nonsense (life being without any graspeable point, and other inexplicable things people meet in a lifetime) and a constant threat of death.
In the book these things were mostly represented by the irony, sharp humour, and puns in the dialogs. Something like that is rather boring to put into a film literally, so Svankmajer represented the constant threat of dying with the animals being skulls etc, the general weirdness of life being the general weirdness of the film.
But I still don't think that that would cover all the aspects of this movie.
Throughout this movie I was trying to see through the visuals and see what could possibly be happening as if Alice was hallucinating. Given Lewis Carrolls history and his utter infatuation with the real Alice, I percieved the film as chronicaling Alice's Hallucinations. Her mind would interpret her senses in a different way. Utilizing a child's imagination she would then act out as if she were in this fantasy world, but at the same time in real life she is being abused physically and sexually. As I watched the movie with this perseption in my mind I noticed many horribly graphic sexual symbolisms. Too many to be of coincedence. She was simply being a child under the influence of powerful hallucinigenics being introduced to very strange and adult actions. I believe she is simply wandering through Carroll's home. At least thats my runnig theory. Unfortunatly I cannot give specific example because it has been a few months since I have seen the movie and I am afraid I will screw up details therefore rendering my theory meaningless. You will see what I mean if you essentially get your mind into the gutter and watch the film.
I apologize for any spelling misstakes, I don't care to fix them.
If you get your mind in the gutter for ANY surreal film, you can come out with conclusions that follow such a line of thought.
There's no denying this film is open to many, many different possible interpretations.
just for my understanding, with out insult to anyone's intelligence, except my own, you mean that if you look for something be somewhere that you will eventually find it... as in if you think that a story has many sexual and mental abuse connections then you will start making those connections independently of the artist's intent (although you should trust the art not the artist).
share"Throughout this movie I was trying to see through the visuals and see what could possibly be happening as if Alice was hallucinating. Given Lewis Carrolls history and his utter infatuation with the real Alice, I percieved the film as chronicaling Alice's Hallucinations. Her mind would interpret her senses in a different way. Utilizing a child's imagination she would then act out as if she were in this fantasy world, but at the same time in real life she is being abused physically and sexually. As I watched the movie with this perseption in my mind I noticed many horribly graphic sexual symbolisms. Too many to be of coincedence. She was simply being a child under the influence of powerful hallucinigenics being introduced to very strange and adult actions. I believe she is simply wandering through Carroll's home. At least thats my runnig theory. Unfortunatly I cannot give specific example because it has been a few months since I have seen the movie and I am afraid I will screw up details therefore rendering my theory meaningless. You will see what I mean if you essentially get your mind into the gutter and watch the film. "
that about sums up how i felt.
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Why the obsession with sexual symbolism? I did not notice it at all in this film... ok the socks were somewhat 'phallic' but that doesn't mean that's what they were supposed to represent.
Can someone please explain this to me... I mean it seems that if anything remotely pointy appears it must be 'phallic'... I could be wrong but reading such conclusions make me think that it reflects more on the writer's issues than the actual film.
There are three common misconceptions here.
1. There is no real evidence that Lewis Carroll used hallucinogenic drugs or even had them in his conception while writing.
2. There isn't consensus that Carroll was a pedophile, and evidence he was a pedophile is sketchy at best. Check out Karoline Leach's In the Shadow of the Dreamchild.
3. Sure, there's sexual imagery, but what else? Just because it's surrealism doesn't mean it's all sex.
Thanks guys!
Some parts made me think of the educational system....
shareRE: the food comment.
Svankmajer does often focus on food, or aspects of eating- e.g. "Meat Love", the beginning of Faust, the bread in Conspirators... In his interview with Anthony Lane of the New Yorker he said that as a child in Czechoslovakia he was underweight and was therefore sent to a sort of health camp where he was force-fed, an experience which began a morbid obsession with eating. How this fact elucidates Alice, however, I am not quite sure.
I also thought it was odd that Alice ate anything that resembled food, or at least tried to eat it.
shareI noticed that as well.
Such as with the wooden 'mushroom', she clearly saw it was wood, and was old enough to know not to go about gnawing on a tree like a beaver. But if it resembled food, it was edible.
Someone mentioned at some point to me the scissors had some deep meaning as well, though I can't seem to find that much.
I see Alice, when she breaks through the paper doll of her self in the food storage closet as becoming more sure of herself. From the first half before that time she was more careful and meeker. But after that she exhibited more adventurous desires and was in general stronger to me.
Honestly, I didn't see much in the way of sexual symbolism. Though I am sure if anyone looked at it differently the film would be filled with it.XD These kinds of films are very much an open end for the viewer to take and leave what he or she choses.