"The director's synthesis of the authentic and the artificial (replete with frighteningly creaking, clanging sound effects) – as well as his refusal to bookend the fantastical action with comforting visions of the waking world – allows Alice to tap into the element of nightmarish dread that's always colored the classic kid's story, and his sparse use of English narration (delivered via fetishistic, out-of-sync close-ups of Kohoutova's mouth) highlights the power of the spoken word while also contributing to the overriding air of unreality. Eerily evocative and disturbingly potent, Svankmajer's surrealist adaptation is a welcome antidote to the cute and cuddly Disneyfication of Carroll's iconic tale." - Nick Schager, Lessons of Darkness