Educational Media Reviews Online

The question in my mind is not whether Jan Svankmajer’s surrealistic Alice is a good film, which of course it is or whether it is important to include it in a collection, which of course it should be, but whether the First Run Features recent edition is the one to purchase. This live action and stop motion animation film has not seen a DVD and/or Blu-ray release until now. It is very exciting that the BFI has restored the film and made it available in a region-free dual format release in 2011, that is to say, that there is a Blu-ray disc and DVD in the same package. According to what I’ve read it is an outstanding new high-definition transfer created from original 35mm elements in Prague and under the supervision of Svankmajer's regular producer Jaromír Kallista. Both the original Czech and English dubbed versions are included in the BFI edition, as is a hefty booklet, and 5 additional short films.

What's considerably more perplexing, is why the First Run Features Blu-ray disc simply contains the BFI’s restoration of the crudely-dubbed English soundtrack version, which is only included on the BFI disc set for apparently nostalgic reasons. There's no question that the Czech version is far superior on every level, not least because of the truly poor lip-sync rendition, which is difficult to avoid given there are so many extreme close-ups of Alice's mouth. It could be argued that the universally panned dubbed version adds another layer of surrealism in that the disembodied voice on a disembodied soundtrack provides another element of dissociation but that would be stretching the interpretation. What was First Run’s rationale to only include the familiar English dub created for channel 4, but then to also provide subtitles for the hearing impaired? Surely there was some reason for not acquiring the superior Czech version.

The BFI Blu-ray +DVD boxed set with booklet costs under 13 GBP which translates to about $21 US versus the First Run Features dubbed Blu-ray by itself for $18 US. It is clear that the BFI version is the one to acquire. The film is an absolute must for anyone interested in animation. This more unnerving re-telling of the Lewis Carroll story may be somewhat disturbing for younger viewers but older ones will enjoy it as much as the adults.