Czech new wave

Czechoslovakian new wave is an early 1960's Czechoslovakian film movement, where film makers were annoyed by the Communist regime. Their goal was to make people aware of the oppressive society they lived in.

Czech new wave offered Dark humour, strong narratives, unprofessional actors and a real sense for the strange and absurd. Mise en scene, plays a heavy role in Czech film. And this can be seen in the 1988 film Alice.

Czech film in this period was heavily political and Anti- regime. Highly satirical humour came into play.

The movement came to an abrupt end when Soviet forces invaded Prague and film and media faced heavy censorship.

Czech film was all about oppression and corruption, this created some of the richest and wildly creative cinema to date, the conventions are totally absurd in comparison to american  and western cinema.

Jan Švankmajer's 'Alice' perfectly explains and depicts Czech cinema. It is a little late from Czech new wave, but still shows characteristics.

Alice is the time old story hailing from 1800's England that everyone knows. Švankmajer takes this story and shows it in a light quite different from a children's tale. Right off the mark we are faced with sinister imagery and ambience. Any child would be terrified of the grating teeth from the white rabbit in this version. 

The entire Mise en scene of this film is very effective. most of the film looks crude and primitive with jerky stop-motion animation scenes, This only adds the the films overall tone.

What i take from this film is that a well known and accepted world (Story), has dark connotations and throughout the film, alice is faced against a regime. The queen of hearts in this film can be interpreted as the communist force, and Alice as the Czech population or disillusioned youth.

This film adaptation rejects the Fairy tale connotations of Alice in wonderland, and instead implies alice dreams the events, and takes a trip through her Amoral subconscious. 
The depiction of Alice as a Doll in her smaller form is a fantastic way to emphasise the idea that Alice is a puppet for other peoples amusement both within the films settings, and the real world Czech issues. 

Although Czechoslovakian new wave could not be pinned down by one set of conventions, their interests often touched upon the same ground, that is the concern of ordinary people faced with large political troubles. One could state similarities between Czech and French new wave, and although Czech new wave did take inspiration; the highly driven story lines are drastically different.

Czech new Wave to me, proves the importance of setting, and Mise en scene. Alice is riddled with clunky Dialogue and poor technology, making it look messy. But this adds to the atmosphere when you are faced with the world alice is traveling through. And that is how it feels, instead of watching a film you feel as though you are gazing into this surreal bizarre and deeply sinister world, it totally absorbs you into its literature, and this is all done by how the film looks.

On top of this, because a western audience typically would not know the history of the culture this film is from, its connotations are lost and misunderstood. This to some brings a sense of exploration and due to lack of understanding, the scenery, costume, story and concept may seem more strange and bizarre than originally intended.

‘...frequently we know little of the cultural and political tensions within the societies that produce them. As a result, the main selling point about foreign films tends to become their very exoticism. They seem to be in conversation with some other film tradition, with some other culture, which we do not entirely understand. They become, in Chris Anderson’s words “freaky treasures”’ 

Hawkins, J., ‘Culture Wars: Some New Trends in Art Horror’ ian Conrich, I. (ed.), Horror Zone (I.B.Taurus, 2010)

Mise en Scene is highly recognised in Horror films, and without anything explicit happening on screen, setting and costumes can tell the viewer all they need to know, and make them feel the desired emotion. Oddly, Alice to me has some Horror connotations, whether they are purposeful or brought about by my understanding of western cinema.