Neco z Alenky (Jan Svankmajer, 1988)

If you're at all familiar with Czech animator Svankmajer's dark and twisted visions, such Little Otik, in which a bereaved couple adopt a tree root that turns demonically voracious, you'll know not to expect Disneyesque cutesiness from his version of Alice in Wonderland. Accordingly, the stop-motion creatures that populate the world of her adventures are cobbled together from bizarre materials such as false eyes, Wonderland itself a dank and claustrophobic old house, and Alice, who provides the voices of the other characters in precocious tones as narrator, at turns insufferable brat and amoral vandal. You couldn't warm to any part of it, but the remarkable technical inventiveness and lack of sentimentality-by-numbers are undeniable. I'd take it over Tim Burton's bloated mess of a production any day of the week.

6/10