Film Comment:
Alice in Wondertown
This film is available only in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.
One of the most controversial films ever produced in Cuba, ALICE IN WONDERTOWN is a satirical fairytale featuring a young woman at risk of losing herself in a lunatic world. Director Daniel Diaz Torres mixes a dash of Alice in Wonderland with a pinch of The Castle (very loosely based on Kafka) and a dollop of Cuba critique to whip up a larger-than-life filmic grotesque that earned ALICE IN WONDERTOWN a ban shortly after it was released.
Credits
Original Title: Alicia en el pueblo de Maravillas
Language:
Spanish with German subtitles
Country of Origin: Cuba
Year : 1991
Duration: 90 Min.
Color
Director: Daniel Díaz Torres
Script: Jesús Díaz Torres, “Nos-y-Otros” group
Camera: Raúl Pérez Ureta
Editing: Jorge Abello
Music: Frank Delgado
Starring/Featuring: Alberto Pujol, Carlos Cruz, Reynaldo Miravalles, Raul Pomares, Thais Valdés
Production: Instituto Cubano del Arte e Industrias Cinematográficos (ICAIC), Havanna; Humberto Hernández
Festivals: 1991: Berlin/International Forum of New Cinema
Awards: 1991: Peace Film Award, Berlin International Film Festival
Parental Guidance Suggestion: Suitable for 12 years and over
also known as ALICE IN WONDERLAND
Other films you might like:
Ché Guevara As You Have Never Seen Him Before
Death of a Bureaucrat
Momentos con Fidel – Caminos de Revolucion
Hello Hemingway
Viva Cuba!
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About the Film
Alice in Maravillas
Alice (Thais Valdes) has just earned a degree in drama and wants to go to a place where she can put her education to good use. She takes a job in a small town, Maravillas, but soon she realizes that all the inhabitants are here because they've been accused of some wrongdoing. She is the only resident who wasn't sent here for disiplinary reasons. Maravillas is a city of the damned - an awful, cursed place - as Alice soon finds out.
Alice (Thais Valdes) faces a difficult task in Maravillas.
More enchanting than theater.
Everyone here tells captivating, bizarre stories about their improprieties, and director Daniel Díaz Torres visualizes these tales with impressive imagery. Dramatic theater can't quite produce this level of grotesqueness. Alice decides to use lay actors to bring these stories to the stage. Unfortunately, her superiors have other ideas about art. Just one example of how easy it is to rub the authorities the wrong way.
Only free agent
Alice is the only free agent in this nightmarish power play. In a place reserved for the oppressed and the dependent, you either conform or flee for your life.
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