Alice In Wonderland: An X-Rated Musical Fantasy (1976) is probably the most unique portrayal of Lewis Carroll's story, for the obvious fact in that it is a pornographic musical. A Freudian dreamscape of releasing repressed sexuality.
The backdrop of this adaptation has Alice as a young adult working at her job as a librarian when she and a man whom she shares a romantic tension with get into a small debacle over the topic of having sex. Alice negates the idea (as later revealed in her dream after being propositioned for the act with the King), wishing to stay pure until marriage; though as is revealed throughout the film this standard doesn't hold up to inner repressed curiosities she holds; but at this introduction she stands in her resolve. From there he leaves and Alice goes on to resume her work a moment, then breaking into song where she considers that maybe she's holding herself to a standard that isn't realistic, that she is too strict with herself while being at a young age, and maybe is too quickly reprehensive towards partaking in Earthly delights; likening herself to a large redwood tree that takes 500 years to mature, pondering if she could do all that in just two so as to not be so 'grown up' so soon.
It is after this number she settles back down to find a copy of Lewis Carroll's book Alice In Wonderland, and in that the story is what would be called today, 'meta', with events about to transpire. Having never read the novel before she decides to do so, falling asleep and entering into a dream while doing so; where she then meets the White Rabbit and follows him through a mirror into Wonderland. The use of a mirror as the portal to this realm could properly signify that the world she has entered shows just what she tries to cover up, or stave away from her mind but is there nonetheless as, "the dream is a sort of substitution for the emotional and intellectual trains of thought," where, "the dream not infrequently anticipates, in impatience, as it were, the expected pleasure," from repressed desires.
It must suffice to state that we obtain matter enough for the resolution of every morbid idea if we direct our attention to the unbidden associations which disturb our thoughts— those which are put aside by the critic as worthless refuse.
With this, each song that spontaneous comes into fruition in the proceeding events serve largely as prelude for what is ultimately exploratory sexual activity for Alice. Learning in witness, and two instances of personal participation, of such erotic engagements: masturbation, fellatio, cunnilingus, fingering, full on fucking, and orgiastic activity in the kingdom serve as a sort of unconscious awakening for Alice to rid herself of what would seem based on her conversation with the King, as externally prescribed prohibitions. This then showing the dream by and large to serve as a form of sublimation for latent feelings of curiosity manifesting what she otherwise outwardly deemed as morbid, near incomprehensible or desiring the undesirable; and shedding those sensibilities.
The formula for these dreams may be thus stated: They are concealed realisations of repressed desires.
The film ends with Alice on the run, escaping from the Queen after a trial which resulted in 'giving her head', coming to a body of water she leaps in and on account of being unable to swim nearly drowns. But, being a dream before any real harm occurs she awakens as she is once again confronted by the man who had come to apologize for his insistent and slightly belligerent advances prior; however Alice initiates a kiss which then turns into the two making love. Latent desire fulfilled and inhibition stripped of all its restricting clothing.
Select Bibliography
Freud, Sigmund, and M. D. (Montague David) Eder. On Dreams. With Internet Archive, Mineola, N.Y. : Dover, 2001. Internet Archive, http://archive.org/details/ondreams000freu.
No comments:
Post a Comment