I’ve been a fan of Alice
in Wonderland since I was a kid, although I didn’t read Lewis Carroll’s Alice books until I was an
adult, which was prompted by my first viewing of Jan Svankmajer’s Alice
(1988), and ever since reading them I’ve been pretty enthusiastic about keeping
an eye out for films inspired by or adapted from the books, which was what
attracted me to the French surrealist film Alice
or the Last Escapade in the first place. I thought the film did a pretty
good job at creating an interesting new take on Alice in Wonderland (without actually being about Alice in Wonderland) while also being a
bit derivative and having an ending that viewers will no doubt have seen before
that I still thought was beautifully executed. It’s also very much of the ‘70s
Eurocult sensibility and a product of its time, but it feels like there’s also a
little something here for everyone, including the curious Alice in wonderland fan (who doesn’t mind a lightly inspired
non-adaptation), and even the surreal, the arthouse, or even the gothic horror
fan.
