Review of Alice in Wonderland (1951) by Chatvarin L — 07 Apr 2011

This was one of the crop of animated films I really enjoyed as a child. The pleasure it imparted was always somehow different from, say Disney's "Cinderella" or "The Land Before Time". Recently wacthing it again I realized it must have been the chromatic vibrancy and what I would have found spellbindingly original characters.

Unfortunately I did not enjoy this film as much on an older revisit like I did "Cinderella" (which I actually like more now older). The visual remains the film strong point: stylized of the sort you would find in post-modern picture storybook for children and luminously brilliant and expressive. It has also a musical soundtrack which segues the very episodic structure. Yet somehow it doesn't seem to be as constantly engaging as Lewis Carroll's texts. Perhaps if I hadn't read Carroll's original in the years I was away from the film I would still be as absorbed by it but there is no denying that for all its cleverness the books are just too prodigious an artistic summit to scale. I certainly miss Tenniel's illustrations but the visual and the music simply cannot match Carroll's texts at narrating, intriguing, ambience enveloping and involving generally.

It is such a shame, especially as this is probably one of the cinematic adaptations most faithful to their literary sources ever. It is still a fun and pleasant ride, by all means, but apart from being possibly the most colourful film with the most amiably whimsical soundtrack ever created it doesn't deliver satisfaction, especially on the narrative and emotional front; I think everything was done to meet this end, but unfortunately only Carroll's texts have succeeded in these with the sort of material the stories have.