Alison in Wonderland (2011)

Alison in Wonderland

2011, HD (2.35:1), Drama/fantasy/horror/comedy, color.

Crew
Producer/Director/Writer/Editor: J.L. Carrozza.

This troublemaking and long standing pet project began life after Dream House as simply Alice in Wonderland. I've had vague ideas for an Alice in Wonderland movie since I was a kid and ironically, Little Red Riding Hood and Alice in Wonderland were the two old school children's tales I was always the most attracted to when I was young. A decade later, when, since Dream House was less well received, I decided to go back once more to more fantasy-based fare like Little Red Riding Hoodr. I began planning for it during my rather uninspiring days at a poor, overpriced corporate art college. The script and its concepts were a bit stale, the inspiration just wasn't there and in the end the project blew up in my face. The actress I had cast walked off set after an hour of filming, everybody else was kind of resistant and by that time, I was so overwhelmed I decided to just give it up. However, a good story seldom lets go of a tenacious filmmaker and I decided to go back to the project with some new, fresher ideas and approaches. I retooled the script, revamped the concept and changed the title to Alison in Wonderland. The film will no longer be just a slapstick comedy like Little Red Riding Hood but has been retooled with more of a politically satirical edge. I've expanded upon the concept with a basic theme akin to Guillermo Del Toro's fantastic Pan's Labyrinth: a young person escaping a harsh reality and finding their true selves in a world of fantasy. The film changes the character of Alice from a little, blonde-haired British girl to an overstressed modern day American high school girl named Alison and the setting from 19th century Britain to late turn of the 21st century, Bush-era America.

I like Lewis Carroll's novel more for its motifs, aesthetic and imagery than it's story, which is not very cohesive. It succeeds beautifully as a dream-like fable to entertain children but as a story it's been done to death. So I can only think of one way to make it seem fresh: filter it through the modern zeitgeist. Though I really am hopeful that we are headed toward better times, the Bush Administration years is something I'll never forget. The callousness of their executive decisions was deplorable and the hopelessness their reign brought was very noticeable for me, particularly among the fellow youth I spent time around. So many young people in my age group, myself not withstanding, seemed to largely lose their productive drive and began to live rather strong lives of carnal and materiel decadence: buying things and consuming, overeating, doing drugs, leading love lives of pointless promiscuity, etc. In this kind of morally ambiguous environment, how must one rise above it? How does someone find their sanity in a world gone mad? I'm taking Lewis Carroll's iconic concept of a world of where only nonsense and madness exists and meshing these themes with a more modern zeitgeist. In that spirit, Alison in Wonderland will be a fun mix of old and new. Lewis Carroll's novel is really used as just a basic springing board for this bigger picture. Wonderland itself is a more comedic and slapstick metaphor for the real world and America under the Bush Administration. The White Rabbit, The Caterpillar, the Cheshire Cat, the Mad Hatter and March Hare, the Mock Turtle and The Red Queen all make appearances, shoehorned from their child-like literary incarnations into a more post-modern, grotesque form and playing aspects and elements of a "society gone mad".

Though the old script was still at short film length, the film, with a 75 page script, is planned to be my first feature length dramatic movie. For it's technicals, the film will shot on low cost digital video, alternating between various HD and DV formats depending on the mood and needs of the shot. Depth of field will have far more attention paid to it than in previous films of mine and the wardrobe, special effects and overall feel of the film will be far more elaborate. Aesthetically, it will be a nice mixture between a lower-key, almost documentary like quality and the vibe of grotesquery that was admired by many in Little Red Riding Hood . A large amount of low-cost but hopefully effective practical and visual effects will be utilized. It's long been my dream to do in New England what Herk Harvey did in Kansas with Carnival of Souls or George Romero did in Pittsburgh for Night of the Living Dead and this film will hopefully bring me straight to that lofty goal. It will be a film completely locally shot (using entirely New England based locations) but with a scope far exceeding it's minimal resources. It should be a lot of fun to make because I love realism and films about people's earnest problems but also have an intense adoration for over the top works of excess.

The film will start shooting in May of 2011 and after Black Sunshine is completed in early fall I will start the fundraising process and have already begun building my props. Stay tuned to my above blog for frequent updates and there will be weekly YouTube production diaries as the film shoots.