Alice Shrinks and Expands

Over a hundred and fifty years after it was written, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland continues to influence people all over the world, including here in Japan. This year brings us a Japanese anime adaptation called Fushigi no Kuni de Alice to: Dive in Wonderland. The Japanese title of Alice in Wonderland is Fushigi no Kuni no Alice (不思議の国のアリス), which translates to "Alice's Mysterious Country". This new movie's title is slightly different, translating to something like "With Alice in the Mysterious Country". The central protagonist is not Alice but a young woman called Rise (Hara Nanoka) whose adventure is a virtual reality exploration in a film I found to be surprisingly progressive with a pro-A.I. message. And not a bad film.

It's the political angle that may have made the film unpopular in Japan. It's playing at the movie theatre a few blocks from me, which is where I saw it on Sunday, but none of the students I've mentioned it to so far have even heard of it. Japan, like seemingly all first world countries, has been leaning increasingly to the right.

Rise has the usual preoccupations of a young woman of her age in Japan. She worries about interviews and her professional future. When she can't sleep, she kills zombies in a first person shooter game on her phone.

She's summoned to her deceased grandmother's lavish manor with enormous gardens modelled on Alice in Wonderland. Rise's fondest memories from childhood involve reading the Alice books with her grandmother. Upon entering the manor, she's escorted to a waiting room and given a virtual reality helmet. She puts it on and her phone is transformed into an apple which is immediately stolen by an angry White Rabbit whom Rise then chases throughout the film. The Fall of Man allegory here is intentional. When Rise finally catches up with the apple, she starts eating it and is transformed into the Jabberwock, a transformation which begins with her turning black and sprouting bat wings, an obvious visual reference to Satan. But the film doesn't go in the direction you might think and in general has a message very much in support of smart phones, virtual reality, and artificial intelligence. Alice (Maika Pugh) is an A.I. character, perpetually cheerful and always supportive of Rise, lacking the petulance the girl occasionally exhibits in the books and in other film adaptations.

Ultimately, the film's message is one of self-creation in which the distractions Rise's been encouraged to feel ashamed of are revealed to be expressions of her true wants and needs. I don't agree with the film's whole-hearted embrace of technology which has already shown a capacity for manipulating its users to sinister ends but I do admire self-creation and this was certainly a more interesting film than I was expecting. I was disappointed the chess pieces in the film were black and white instead of red and white as they are in Through the Looking Glass.

Fushigi no Kuni de Alice to: Dive in Wonderland is in theatres in Japan.