Jefferson Airplane? OK, now I understand.

Like most North Americans kids, I was raised on Disney. I’m not a Disney zombie or anything, but I can say for certain that the first 3 movie experiences I remember were distinctly Disney. The Rescuers was the first movie that I ever saw in a theatre and I loved it to death. Disney’s Sunday Night movies were the entertainment staple of my early years, even without a cable television. I was surrounded by Disney storybooks and toy characters in those blissful years when I didn’t and couldn’t comprehend the difference between real magic and the business of entertainment. To a six-year old, Disney isn’t a company making movies. Disney simply is. All this is to say that I figure I have seen most, if not all, of the Disney feature-length films, and I know them all very well. Except this one.

Disney’s Alice In Wonderland (1951) probably would have made my childhood a very different experience. Because as an adult, it certainly messed me the hell up. I suppose I saw it under nearly ideal circumstances, dopey-tired and just barely this side of awake. It was a long day at work on Monday, and I was grateful that Spartacus was not available at the library because I don’t think I could have withstood any movies longer than 75 minutes. But even still, I wasn’t quite ready for the sideways dream-scape that is Wonderland.

Simply put, the movie is mad. There were sequences in the film that I could barely believe were made anywhere, much less in a Disney workshop: the caterpillar who blows dialogue, the insolent Cheshire cat, the tea party comprised of absolute and hard-core mental patients, the disjointed story tangents. This isn’t to say that the film is particularly subversive, because it’s not. But it is such an unusual Disney feature, so divorced from any kind of linear and formulaic Disney narrative, that it almost seems like the output of a rogue studio.

Of course, even without having seen Alice In Wonderland before, I was quite familiar with the story and images. I wasn’t surprised by any of the familiar characters or situations exactly. I already knew where Alice’s trip down the rabbit hole was going to go in a vague way. What I wasn’t prepared for was the manic pace of the film or the abrupt sequence of events. The truth is – and blame this on my exhaustion if you’d like – there were times in the film where I was absolutely lost in the plot. In the blink of an eye, the story changed direction so much fast that there were at least 2 or 3 instances where I had to rewind and realign my bearings. Even paying closer attention, this didn’t help. The movie simply moves like a child’s mind, with no concern for reason or cohesion. It’s the dictionary definition of marvelous.

Why did it trouble me so much? I don’t know. Perhaps it’s that the movie seemed to tap into a part of the imagination that so rarely ends up on-screen (at least in the current animated output of the major studios,) and I was startled. Perhaps it’s the way that Alice In Wonderland just sort of hides amid Disney’s output, never regarded as one of the cornerstone classics and probably not revisited by many people (Disney’s dirty little secret.) Or perhaps it was those damn singing flowers, all of which seemed obscene to me in the most Freudian way (like I said, I was awfully tired. I’m sorry.)

Which leads me to the dark side of Alice In Wonderland. Unlike so many Disney fairytales, it seems to me that there’s a genuinely dreadful and threatening current running through Wonderland. And the threat isn’t just that Alice may be killed; there’s a real possibility that she will be killed and eaten. I’m not really talking about the most obvious threats (i.e. the Red Queen with the ol’ “off with her head” directive) so much as the feral and unpredictable elements of the story: the Cheshire cat who comes and goes as he pleases, but always with the flashing teeth; the caterpillar with his pipe, possibly stuffed with the sort of plantweed you don’t find in the Magic Kingdom; the wild birds that seem to have flown right out of the imagination of children; and even the Mad Hatter and March Hare, who might just as easily tear Alice apart as pour her tea. Now, I’m certain this dark side must’ve been prevalent in Lewis Carroll’s book, although I’ve never read it. I know that other creators in the last 50 years have played up the dark and sinister side of Wonderland (wasn’t there a video game?) But in the Disney context, it’s sort of a unique dimension. The movie is just barely kid-friendly.

I like surprises in the Monday Night line-up. I love it even more when a movie exceeds my expectations by being something completely different than what I’m expecting. With Alice In Wonderland, I was expecting a relatively quiet and colourful Disney movie that I hadn’t seen before. I was certainly not prepared for a movie that got into my head and under my skin.

Those damn singing flowers.