Memories of Alice in Wonderland

The ‘Rev Clutter’ and I have just missed Avatar – the 3D experience everyone is still taking about - at the Brighton Marina Odeon. It was, I thought, still showing at the time it had been the previous week.

Clutter looked stern. However, spinning on a sixpence, I noticed that it was just the right time to see Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland. A different 3-D adventure? Clutter gave the nod.

So now that you’re sitting comfortably, in Tim Burton’s gothic version of Lewis Carroll’s classic story, Alice Kingsleigh (Mia Wasikowska) is the daughter of Charles Kingsleigh (Marton Csokas), a wealthy man who planned to find profitable shipping routes through the world in the 19th century.

He died before his visions bore fruit, Alice is very nearly grown up, and the shipping routes remain unplundered. It will, however, be a different matter for her if a certain lord gets his way with her. The external world of Alice follows the patterns of her inner world; and chaos inevitably follows.

With a nod to myself about the deafening qualities of modern cinematic sound, I stuck on my noise-reducing earphones. That meant Clutter could enjoy the adverts while I recovered from a hearty brunch at the nearby Witherspoons-upon-Marina. (Good value, too.)

For once, as the film’s titles rolled, there was no grim reminder not to record anything. I don’t suppose you could do it with 3-D. And once I found that 3-D didn’t make me sick, I began to enjoy the utter closeness of everything, although I kept ducking from passing balls or other, more gruesome objects. In the finale, I really did try to catch a glorious blue butterfly.

But this was not Alice the way I’d come to know and love in many guises over the years. Perhaps I was remembering the Cary Grant, Gary Cooper and WC Fields movie made in 1933 or the 1949 version with Joyce Grenfell playing the Ugly Duchess/Dormouse?

Perhaps, though, I hadn’t been paid sufficient attention at the outset. I was blissfully unaware that Alice was in a darkly repressed state, regarding her visits to Wonderland as dreams, except when crises arose: with sniffy Lord Hamish (Leo Bill) proposing a life worse than death, I’d have run away too.

Alice then falls down a rabbit hole about the size of the o2 dome and, along the way, keeps shedding clothes, which is certainly likely to disrupt some dream lives. But I’m sorry; this version of Lewis Carroll’s quirky, enchanting story lacks intrinsic charm.

Remember, too, that Carroll’s heroine was just on the verge of puberty; not a full-blown rose running, primarily, away from herself but inevitably fated, in Burton’s strange Wonderland, to go to war; and to wield a magic sword akin to Excalibur against the Red Queen’s Army.

In the role of errant but helpful friend is Johnny Depp, who, despite the weird make-up, does bring The Hatter to life. The voices of many other characters, including a blue-striped Cheshire cat with an unctuous voice (Stephen Fry) will be familiar to TV drama aficionados. Barbara Windsor voices the Dormouse.

The Red Queen is played with a aplomb and zest by Helen Bonham-Carter, despite the probable discomfort of an unreasonably oversized face, while her sister, the White Queen (Anne Hathaway) with ‘normal’ if chalky white features, in the manner of HM Elizabeth I, is a thoroughly unnerving piece of work; not at all my inner child’s idea of a friend: more like a witch than the Red Queen as she stirs severed fingers into a disgusting potion for Alice.

Within the film are assorted curiosities and nasties, many of which appear to have been invented so the director could use them to stretch the 3-D opportunities; although the Jabberwocky came to life originally in Lewis Carroll’s poem of nonsense: part of his novel Through the Looking-Glass.

Wonder, in the sense of meaning ‘to be uplifted’, was not a part of this shockingly vivid but primarily asinine experience. In Burton’s Wonderland, Mia Wasikowska’s Alice passes her endurance tests with an air of not ever quite ‘being there’. Perhaps she was over-directed but her declaration of female independence on returning back to the real world simply doesn’t tally.

On the way out, Clutter got talking to three women who might have stepped right out of the quirky cast. None of us knew who the ‘evil’ Knave of Hearts at the Red Queen’s side had been, but research says Crispin Glover. He oozed evil. Luvly bubbly, unlike the smoky essence of blue carburettor fumes that the Caterpillar, played with languorous detachment by Alan Rickman, breathed over everyone in the film.

Just imagine if you could smell everything!

By the way, to coincide with the theatrical release of Burton’s Alice in Wonderland, the 1972 version of Alice in Wonderland has just been re-released on DVD.

This stars Peter Sellers as the March Hare. Running around him in ever-decreasing circles are Michael Crawford as the White Rabbit, Dudley Moore as Dormouse. Spike Milligan, Sir Michael Hordern, and Sir Ralph Richardson also feature in the film and Fiona Fullerton plays Alice.

The release marks the centenary of Lewis Carroll’s completion of the Alice novels. The film provides a lavish, relatively faithful adaptation of the children’s story, and brings Sir John Tenniel’s enchanting illustrations to life.

DVD Barcode: 5060000403169
DVD RRP: £7.99
Release Date: 8 March 2010