“The me I never knew
Begin to stir sometime this morning;
The me I never knew
Appeared without a word of warning.”

I’d forgotten entirely how this version, too, replicates that “golden afternoon” feeling at the start so well, also that it begins in such a fashion in a framing device of “Mr. Dodgson” (Lewis Carroll) telling the three Liddell sisters the story. All bonus points in my book.

What I always remember about the movie are the songs, John Barry’s score, and Fiona Fullerton, who is absolutely beautiful in the central role – I don’t care what people say about her being too old for it, she’s young enough in spirit and appearance for me. The visual effects, it bears repeating from below, I still find absolutely stunning. The slow shrinking over “Curiouser and Curiouser”, ending with the trackback to reveal the pool of tears, is simply perfect, as is the later growing in the White Rabbit’s house.

It’s certainly still my favourite adaptation (so far). It also has the benefit (I think – as I’ve said in other Alice reviews today I only discovered this past week) of being one of the few to focus solely on the first book (hence the title, presumably).

September 8th, 2005:

This movie has a beautiful look to it, the kind they simply don’t do anymore, all foggy and mysterious like The Water Babies, not slick and perfect like today’s fantasy adventures. There’s some great music by John Barry (slightly dodgy lyrics by Don Black though) and an enchanting performance by then 16-year-old Fiona Fullerton as Alice. What’s most wonderful about the whole thing is its infectious innocence. The cast is packed with stars, from Peter Sellers to Spike Milligan and Michael Crawford, if you can recognise them under all the make-up. The effects are flawless, too. For a 90 minute movie, it tires towards the end, but overall it’s a fairly fantastic adaptation.

Of course, as the Disney version, this is the best-known, most-loved, most stylised and standardised of all the adaptations. As far as I know, it was likely my only source of the story for a good chunk of my life, and by that I mean, I don’t even remember reading or being read the book (_sniff_ lol): I only realised this past week reading the first of the books that parts of this and the other adaptations, like Tweedledum and Tweedledee for example, were in fact taken from “Through the Looking Glass” which I’ve yet to read. In this version, in fact, they even pull in a couple of elements from Carroll’s “Jabberwocky”, as well as throwing in some genuinely clever characters and lines of their own (“You gave me quite a turn!” “She’s stark raven mad!”) ... all in 70 minutes. I still prefer the Fiona Fullerton version by a smidgen, and who knows what Tim Burton’s going to deliver, but this is one of Disney’s best, it’s eyepoppingly colourful particularly when you consider the year it was made, and the character designs etc certainly stick in one’s memory.

This one is fascinating – another TV production, this time by the BBC for the “Wednesday Play” series, and boy does that show: the word “pretentious” certainly comes to mind but I for one won’t be using it because this is one of the best adaptations of the book that I’ve yet seen. It begins by perfectly recreating the part of the story that has always been the most strongly evocative part to me: the simple, lazy image of Alice and her sister on the bank on a hazy Summer afternoon (“All in a golden afternoon …”). From there it launches into some of the most surreal, dreamlike progressions I’ve ever seen on film. It captures some part of the book that few other adaptations would dare. Through clever editing, it’s the closest and most prolonged replica of the dream experience I’ve seen.

I wouldn’t have thought it, as I’m quite attached to the innocent and gracious image of Alice in the blue dress with blonde hair in a bow etc, but I quite like this Hermione-haired, black-dressed, aloof version as played by Anne-Marie Mallik, too; I love how she’s always walking away from people with a “hmph!” flick of her hair. The look she almost gives the camera as the caucus-race “winners” gather around uttering, “prizes, prizes, prizes”, quite like zombies droning, “brains”, lol, is quite priceless, it’s the look of a person bemused by the herd-like behaviours of society.

In short, what it lacks in colour, effects, costumes and comprehensiveness, it makes up for entirely with the feeling it gives by the extraordinary stillness, both in the image and in the soundtrack, Mallik’s whispery distant voiceover, and that very BBC “Play for Today” type score (excepting the odd moment when it, like the imagery, goes a little mental). At 70 minutes, there’s no excuse to pass up the chance to see it.

I love Tina Majorino in just about anything so I kind of knew that I’d be comfortable through most of this despite some bad comments about it (Martin Gardner calls it “undistinguished” and “boring” in “The Annotated Alice” and considering how great his insights are in the margins of that volume, I couldn’t well not believe him). With the book very fresh in my mind (I just finished reading it minutes before putting this on), I was pretty dazzled by how faithful it is to the text (to “Wonderland” at least; I can’t speak for the episodes towards the end I’m assuming are from “Through the Looking Glass”, which I’ve not yet read). That, however, turns out to perhaps be the production’s singular problem. There’s a fine line between being faithful and too damn literal, and this certainly crosses that line eventually.

As expected, I found Majorino delightful as Alice (I don’t like the yellow dress though :P) – her English accent is a little too clipped at times but mostly it’s perfect, as is she. The rest of the cast is certainly impressive (how often do you find Ken Dodd, Martin Short and Gene Wilder in the same place, lol?) but often just plain annoying; for me nothing much compares to the fantastic supporting cast of the Fiona Fullerton version. The visual effects are fairly clunky at times and the production and costume design etc (I already mentioned the yellow dress) is some of the most garish and unappealing I’ve seen in any artwork based on the story – towards the end, in fact, it almost looks like they’re running out of money by the scene. For Majorino and the details in the script, however, it’s certainly worth seeing if you’ve read and enjoyed the source material.

Finally Shirley gets a story. I felt like I could trust this from the off and in terms of pure production quality this is leagues above the other Shirley movies I’ve seen. The sets look right out of a storybook. I’m still left unimpressed by Shirley’s talent – there are a million 6-8 year olds who could deliver this stuff if you only threw discipline into the mix; to me the best child stars are the ones who can do it almost mystically of their own accord (I know, there are a million of those too, but they’re still more special) – but she’s mostly tolerable in the title role.

But though it’s better than some of the Shirley movies (Stand Up and Bright Eyes notwithstanding – I seem to remember enjoying The Bachelor and the Bobbysoxer way back when I saw it too), I still imagine any number of the other Heidi adaptations are more enjoyable (I’ll find out later in the year, I’ve at least 3 in the queue). Which I guess is my point when it comes to the Shirley Temple movies. The defense everyone always uses for them is that she cheered everyone up through the Depression etc. which is fine and dandy but it paints the movies themselves as of the “pure entertainment” variety (which I’m rarely too hot on unless they have something else to them) and on that front they just don’t deliver as much anymore. I won’t deny their historical value, and Shirley herself is “cute enough” ... but there are still hundreds of movies that are more worth anybody’s time.

“She was only the dead-leaf echo of the nymphet from long ago – but I loved her, this Lolita, pale and polluted and big with another man’s child. She could fade and wither – I didn’t care. I would still go mad with tenderness at the mere sight of her face.”

First thing that must be said here is how much funnier this is than I ever remember it. The two adaptations of Vladimir Nabokov’s novel are usually separated quite cleanly as “Kubrick funny and Lyne serious” but it’s really nowhere near as simple as that. There are tons of laughs in this version, particularly early on as the game begins in the Haze household. “Is she keeping you up?” Charlotte asks Hum after his and Lo’s first intimate moment, and later, “Just slap her hard if she interferes with your scholarly meditations.” This humour continues throughout the film, usually undercutting any potential discomfort caused by the underage sex etc. (the sleeptalking at the Enchanted Hunters, eg.). The movie kind of snaps in two at the moment when Humbert tells Lo about her mother and the first scene of her crying (some of the most gutwrenching crying ever put on film, I might add, I can hardly bear it no matter how many times I watch the movie) – but even after that the laughs are horrifyingly infectious – the riotous start to the “road trip” portion of the story, for instance, with Lo flinging hairgrips and such at Humbert from the back seat makes one entirely forget just exactly what is going on and indeed what just happened.

Ennio Morricone’s score (it’s the tragic atonal notes that kill me), Jon Hutman’s production design (and/or Chris Shriver’s art direction – I’ve never been able to differentiate between the two roles, lol), Howard Atherton’s cinematography, and Judianna Makovsky’s costume design all deserve individual mention – the production design in particular, though. It’s the motels that stand out of course (“Children under 14 free!”) but the details of the props, from whiskey glasses to the Magic Fingers to the whole damn interior of the car are amazing too, everything has a weighty, tangible believability to it. Lyne’s imagery is virtually flawless, it’s certainly a leap from his 80s thrillers anyway; the introduction to Lolita in the garden is just as arresting as that in the ‘62 movie, and that’s really no mean feat to accomplish. Such things as the grotesque shot of Quilty’s hand “fingering” the dog leash jar occasionally but it all contributes to the uneasy balance of light and dark. Looking at the nominations for the 1998 Oscars (or even ‘99, when the movie was nominated for some more minor accolades), it’s a genuine shame that this movie ultimately got such a messy release, because in the minor categories it could’ve had a serious shot (I’m always amused, however, when I’m reminded that Dominique Swain and Jeremy Irons were nominated for Best Kiss at the MTV Movie Awards :))

Unlike many (and I’ve said this many times before, hopefully I’m not boring anyone with repetition) I’ve a huge place in my heart for both Lolita adaptations. They’re just entirely different films as the novel is a different work too. I have no great desire as some do to see it done “correctly” or from Nabokov’s own screenplay (which I have but haven’t yet read) though of course I’d watch such a thing in a flash and probably build yet another cavern of love in my chest for that too.

I have to include just one more quote in this review, I could honestly fill a page with them though – it’s the one that ends the movie and what always brings me back to regarding it as every bit as good an adaptation as Kubrick’s no matter where it may stumble along the way:

“What I heard then was the melody of children at play. Nothing but that. And I knew that the hopelessly poignant thing was not Lolita’s absence from my side, but the absence of her voice from that chorus.”

Both quotes are almost straight from the novel, albeit shortened; both are beautiful and really get to the heart of why Lolita is so much more than it’s often unfortunately mistaken for. It’s been too long since I actually read the novel, I read it almost every year for a while but I can’t seem to find the time to read these days. Watching this, however, not to mention searching an e-text for those particular lines and finding the glorious expanded versions of them, definitely made me want to find time. Anyone who hasn’t read it at least once should feel even more compelled.

I would’ve watched this eventually just for the presence of Julie Christie, but I stepped it up the to-watch list after hearing a brief summary of the plot on (of all things) Smodcast (never let it be said Kevin Smith doesn’t talk about mature things, lol) ... I figured this could be something like The Notebook. But this movie is much more complicated, difficult, possibly even cruel, than that or just about anything that’s come before it. Right from the start, the quietness, the stillness, the focus on age in this movie, almost reminded me of some Ingmar Bergman movies I’ve seen – Christie almost even has the look of Liv Ullmann at times. It’s too much for me to say anything but it’s a beautiful movie after one watch – everyone is focussing on Julie Christie as the star of the movie but really everyone else in the cast deserves as much attention and I found the movie to be more the story of her husband, played by Gordon Pinsent. Thinking about it now, in fact, it’s quite stunning how Sarah Polley as writer-director handles the POV of both characters, and I think that’s why the movie left me so confused. Christie’s performance is so good because sometimes the movie is seen through Pinsent’s eyes and his view of the situation is at times quite disturbingly paranoid. I left the movie more on this viewing on his side, but at the same time finding it hard to believe what seemed to be the case, that Christie’s disease wasn’t entirely what it at first seemed. One thing’s for sure, this is a stunning debut for Polley which will have people talking more frankly about what is perhaps the most difficult of diseases for many years to come.

I get the feeling that this is always going to be one of those movies I feel like I dreamt. There were a number of details in this viewing that I have literally no recollection of seeing before, even though I was watching the exact same copy of the movie that I watched the first time. If anything, the movie is more disturbing than I grudgingly admitted in the first review; but bizarrely, at the same time, I find it even more beautiful than ever. There’s really not much more I want to say at this point, except, “Squirrel butts don’t glow!” I’d also add to the “little girl lost” themed movies I referred to in the first review as good companions for it, aside from the obvious “Alice in Wonderland” adaptations, this would also work brilliantly alongside Lawn Dogs ... I can’t believe it didn’t occur to me before.

21st November, 2006:

The reaction so far to this movie suggested to me that it was gonna be a real love-it-or-loathe-it affair, and I was almost certain which category I’d fall into, being as I love most Terry Gilliam movies, I love movies such as this, I was enthralled by the trailer, and recently wowed by the amazing Jodelle Ferland in Silent Hill and the “Dead Like Me” pilot (incidentally, funny how that featured a train crash much like the ending of this movie).

But the movie isn’t so cleancut as that and, as it ended, I found myself really not knowing what to feel. It’s an incredible piece of work, I can tell that immediately, but for now I can neither say I love it nor that I loathe it. I can’t believe I’m gonna say this … but this one actually kinda weirded me out, lol. That really takes some doing.

I love how one review I read of this movie recently said its biggest failing was Jodelle Ferland’s performance, and I think it’s a good place to start my review – if you can’t make the leap with Ferland, and I can understand there’ll be many who can’t, then you’re pretty screwed watching this movie, because it’s pretty much entirely her and entirely through her.

I didn’t think the movie would be nearly so unsettling as it is. As I said, it takes a lot to unsettle me, and this is one of the most uncomfortable movies I’ve ever seen. And if this movie’s disturbing to me, I can’t imagine how much it’s upsetting certain types of people (_cough_ Daily Mail cough) Yet, unsettling as it may be, my eyes haven’t been so glued to the screen in ages. Gilliam succeeds in showing how fantastic the crazy world Ferland occupies is through her eyes without forgetting to remind us what’s really happening. I think that’s what makes it so uncomfortable, the way it keeps sucking you in and as soon as you reach a warm place, it kinda slaps you and says “that’s sick!”

The music and photography are beautiful, and Jodelle Ferland’s performance, while not perfect, is certainly demanding and demands attention. The movie loses its way in the second half, I think, but it picks up beautifully for a haunting finish.

It’ll sit nicely alongside movies such as Paperhouse, Mirrormask, Labyrinth, and, I’m guessing, Pan’s Labyrinth (haven’t seen that yet, will do soon, but I get the impression it’s pretty similar stuff); and really, no matter what you think of it, I can’t understand how anybody could call it terrible, as the aesthetic values alone, as in any Terry Gilliam production, are worth the price of admission.

Slightly fragmented review there, sorry, but there’ll be plenty of chances to refine it on the many, I expect, repeat viewings I’ll be giving it.

There’s a nice review of the movie that just found its way into my RSS feed searches here.