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*Alice is part of our Who is Luis Buñuel? season, which throughout February explores Buñuel's legacy in modern and contemporary cinema. This legacy section of the season was curated with the help of The Garden Cinema's members.
In Czech director Jan Švankmajer's surreal adaptation of Lewis Carroll's classic children's book, Alice (Kristýna Kohoutová) follows her stuffed rabbit through a portal inside her dresser to be whisked away to Wonderland. While the White Rabbit, Mad Hatter and Cheshire Cat are still present, the familiar magical world and bizarre characters have undergone an unsettling transformation in the director's vision through the stop-motion animation of dead animals, puppets and other assorted objects.
Curator's note:
Alice explores the uncanny, the unconscious, and sexual repression, all recurring themes throughout Buñuel's work.
During an interview with Peter Hames, Jan Švankmajer said that he draws inspiration from filmmakers such as Luis Buñuel who use montage to juxtapose disparate or random objects to infer associations.
While their techniques may differ, Švankmajer also employs absurd humour and non-linear storytelling, exploring what lies beneath society's deceptive surface.