A unique festival in Mumbai on February 17 will highlight the myriad ways filmmakers look at Alice in Wonderland.
Four films will give movie lovers on opportunity to relive the life of Alice, who was a normal kid in wonderland, meeting Cheshire cat and Mad Hatter, and trying to get the better of the evil Queen of Hearts.
The films will be screened under a special section “Girlhood and Coming of Age” as part of Osianama’s ongoing festival celebrating womanhood. They are Jan Svankmajer’s Alice (1988); Alice in Wonderland (1951) by Clyde Geronimi, Wilfred Jackson and Hamilton Luske; Valerie and Week of Wonders (1970) by Jeromil Jires; and Alice in Wonderland (2010) by Tim Burton.
Alice and Valerie and Week of Wonders are both Czech films. Svankmajer made a surrealist film with his usual animation techniques of clay figures, and puppets, creating a bizarre wonderland for Alice. The film also was his first feature-length film, and it emerged winner at the 1989 Annecy International Animated Film Festival.
Valerie and Week of Wonders , based on the 1932 novel of the same name by Vitezslav Nezval, sees Alice traipse through a shifting landscape of sensuous, anticlerical, and vaguely medieval fantasy-horror enchantments that register more as a collection of dream adventures.
Focusing on Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland as cinematic inspiration, Alice in Wonderland by Geronimi, Jackson and Luske is a musical. The 13th of Walt Disney’s animated features; the film premiered in New York City and London and was critically panned.
However, the film is regarded as one of Disney’s greatest animated cult animation classics, and one of the best film adaptations of Alice.
Burton’s Alice in Wonderland is a dark fantasy starring Mia Wasikowska as Alice Kingsleigh with Johnny Depp, Anne Hathaway and Helena Bonham Carter. It is a live-action remake of the 1951 animated film and the first Classic Disney live-action remake.
Interestingly, Disney first attempted unsuccessfully to adapt Alice into an animated feature film during the 1930s, and succeeded in the 1940s. The film was originally intended to be a live-action/animated film, however, Disney decided to make it an all-animated feature in 1946.
The current film grossed over $1.025 billion worldwide, besides winning the Best Art Direction and Best Costume Design, and nomination for Best Visual Effects at the 83rd Academy Awards. Burton again is working on Alice Through the Looking Glass , as the sequel to his 2010 film.
The first Alice movie was made in 1903. Directed by Cecil Hepworth and Percy Stow, it was the first movie adaptation of the book, and was a silent film and only one copy with parts missing is known to exist. The film was known for its special effects.