Jan Svankmajer - The Complete Short Films [1964] DVD ~ Jan Svankmajer  (6)  £26.98

Conspirators of Pleasure [1996] DVD ~ Petr Meissel  (2)

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Alice In Wonderland [1966] DVD ~ Anne-Marie Mallik  (9)  £14.98

Faust [1994] (REGION 1) (NTSC) DVD ~ Petr Cepek  (2)

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Amazon.co.uk Review
This adaptation of Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland mixes animation and live action to create a dreamlike world, but don't let that fool you into thinking it's simply a kid's film. Young Alice (Kristyna Kohoutová, spoken by Camilla Power) watches a stuffed and mounted rabbit come to life in her playroom and follows it through a magical drawer into a strange world that resembles a 19th-century toy store come to life, with a few specimens from a natural history museum thrown in. Czech animator Jan Svankmajer retains the familiar story elements but tweaks them with bizarre imagery brought to herky-jerky life with his spasmodic style of stop-motion animation. The caterpillar becomes a sock puppet with dentures, while other crazy creatures materialise as creepy skull-headed beings that bleed sawdust. Throughout the tale Svankmajer returns to punctuating close-ups of Alice's lips telling the story, just to remind us that this is a tale told. In the best surrealist tradition Svankmajer uses familiar objects in unfamiliar ways, giving a fantasy quality to the banal (and the not so banal) while tipping the dream logic to the edge of nightmare. While the imagery remains more unsettling than genuinely disturbing, younger children will certainly be happier with Disney's brightly coloured animated classic Alice in Wonderland. Older children and adults will better appreciate Svankmajer's sly visual wit and unusual animation style. --Sean Axmaker

Jan Svankmajer - The Complete Short Films [1964] DVD ~ Jan Svankmajer  (6)  £26.98

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5 Reviews 5 star:  (5) 4 star:    (0) 3 star:    (0) 2 star:    (0) 1 star:    (0)           Average Customer Review (5 customer reviews)		Share your thoughts with other customers:
Most Helpful Customer Reviews   22 of 22 people found the following review helpful: suitable for children than disney, 21 Jan 2006 By  "deardollydenton" - See all my reviews I am really writing in reponse to those who suggest that this DVD is too dark for children. My children (girls age 4 and 2) saw this in the late 80's and called it the 'real' alice, prefering to watch it over and above the disney version which stayed in pristine condition in the video cupboard. I have lost count of how many times they watched this film - they never tired of it. So why did they like it? Who knows. THey were never scared of it as far as I could see. Perhaps it said someting to them about their own childish world which is full of seemingly strange and sometimes senseless events. They also liked the Narnia videos made around the same time, and 'The Box of Delights' both of which had dark undertones for very young children. When i was small I read unsanitized versions of Grimm and other European fairlytales, graduating onto Lord of the Rings and Gormenghast when i was 11. I loved them, and gobbled up books like this. They also loved dark stories like 'Not now Bernard by McKee (look it up, it's fab). Apparaently there are sound psychological reasons for the appeal of such dark materials for children so please don't dismiss this out of hand as a film for the young.  Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? (Report this)   20 of 20 people found the following review helpful: let them watch!!!, 12 Aug 2005 By  Ms. J. Kitchen (King's Lynn, Norfolk United Kingdom) - See all my reviews    This review is from: Alice (VHS Tape) Like some other reviewers, my parents taped this from late night telly for me to watch, back in the depths of childhood. As for this film not being suitable to children, I say - pish! Disurbing images, etc etc - it's only wierd to *rational* grown-ups, who've had a lifetime of conditioning in what consitutes *normal* film-making. As a child, I loved this film, thought it was crazy, beautiful and amazing - it didn't give me nightmares, or make me afraid of milk or meat, because I didn't know it should be scary, no one told me..... I say buy it for yourself, buy it for your kids, buy it for your grandparents, buy it for people you meet in the street and abandon twee disney forever!!! Long may your socks dig holes and your jam bring forth drawing pins!!!!  Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? (Report this)   20 of 21 people found the following review helpful: Through the Looking Glass, Darkly, 20 April 2000 By  Myke O'Clock - See all my reviews    This review is from: Alice (VHS Tape) Animation legend Jan Svankmajer applies his distinctive style to Lewis Carroll's most famous creation, crafting one of the most original and unforgettable takes on Alice's adventures ever put to film. Having previously adapted Carroll in his 1971 short film, "Jabberwocky," Svankmajer returns to the author's work with this amazing feature-length film. Employing a magnificent blend of live action and stop-motion animation, he uses many of Carroll's ideas as jumping-off points. Many of the characters are reconstructed as nightmarish abstracts of the way they have usually been depicted in previous adaptions. The white rabbit is a stuffed real rabbit who keeps his watch tucked in a sawdust-leaking gap in his chest. The Dormouse has been reduced to a creepy crawling foxlike hide, and the Caterpillar is a sock with eyeballs and teeth that sews its eyes shut when it sleeps. Although familiar characters such as the Mock Turtle and the Cheshire Cat are left out, Svankmajer's film is incredibly faithful to the book's sense of fantasy and absurdity. The minimal dialogue and pronounced sound effects also add to the overall unsettling mood. The key to truly appreciating this version is to forget the common associated imagery from other adaptions, and treat this as its own entity. Just as a dream makes a totally different impression on you than a person you describe it to (regardless of how well you describe it), this film is one man's surreal interpretation of another man's surreal description. The skull-headed birds, walking dolls, and broken-down furniture of Svankmajer's world make this a pretty disturbing telling of Alice's journey, but a masterful, enthralling, and undeniably unique one as well. If you are unfamiliar with the art of Jan Svankmajer, this film is a great introduction to the animation genius.  Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? (Report this) › See all 5 customer reviews...		Most Recent Customer Reviews ALICE and ALICE The 2 film versions of Lewis Carroll's ALICE'S ADVENTURES under GROUND (later to become Alice's Adventures in Wonderland) that, in my opinion, capture the adult implications,... Read more Published 9 months ago by David J. Kay Bizarre animated contrasts litter this czech wonder! Jan Svankmajer does a wonderful adaptation of Lewis Carolls classic childrens tale. Perhaps for a more mature audiences because of its disturbing photography and animated ideas... Read more Published on 26 Nov 2000 Search Customer Reviews