Quartile rating: 7.5/10 · 1 rating
A quiet young English girl named Alice finds herself in an alternate version of her own reality after chasing a white rabbit. She becomes surrounded by living inanimate objects and stuffed dead animals, and must find a way out of this nightmare - no matter how twisted or odd that way must be.
Jan Švankmajer's Alice is a genuinely singular work — a surrealist nightmare reimagining of Lewis Carroll that belongs to no one else. Its stop-motion and live-action hybrid cinematography is viscerally original, full of rotting taxidermy, spilling sawdust, and tactile dread that no other adaptation approaches. Novelty is sky-high: this is unmistakably Švankmajer's singular vision. The plot loosely follows Carroll but is deliberately fragmented and dreamlike, serving the atmosphere rather than narrative coherence — functional but not compelling in traditional terms. Acting is minimal almost by design; Kristýna Kohoutová's performance as Alice is stiff and affectless, which fits the tone but limits engagement. The ending, like much of the film, dissolves rather than resolves, leaving an unsatisfying non-conclusion that feels more like an abrupt stop than an intentional artistic statement.