Text | Ray Ying
Fairy tales are a landscape that will never fade in the film industry, romantic innocence and fantasy are the eternal themes of fairy tale movies, gorgeous visual impact and wonderful adventure stories can add luster to the movie. "Alice in Wonderland" is a representative fairy tale movie.
Todonov's focus on narratology focused on narrative time, form, and morphology. Todonov believed that in the novel the characters were equivalent to the subject, their actions were equivalent to predicates, and the objects of their actions, the results, were equivalent to the object. For example, action predicates in novels can be connected and transformed as the plot evolves. The transformation of predicate verbs makes the plot of the novel change from the original equilibrium to the imbalance, and then to the new equilibrium, and they will become the narrative transformation. This is Tornodov's principle of "imbalance-reconstruction".
In the first part of the film, Alice's engagement ceremony is in a state of balance, and it is not until Alice falls into the black hole that the plot is unbalanced. The magical dream gives people a feeling of psychedelic unreality, breaking the previous balance, Alice thinks that this is just her own dream, until she is scratched by the giant bear monster, only to realize that this is not a dream, but a real situation, which is an imbalance in the plot. Alice then infiltrates the Red Queen's castle to save the Mad Hatter, seizes the Sword of Warper, fights the Devil, overthrows the tyranny of the Red Queen, and regains the throne for the White Queen. In the end, Alice returns to reality, chooses her ideal lifestyle, and re-establishes a new balance again.
One
Colors in the visual shape of a character
The concept of color contrast in the film contrasts, using bright colors to express ugliness and using a single color to express justice, which has an unexpected ironic effect. The White Queen wears white lace, including her own war horse, will be draped in a lace robe, the color of lipstick is indeed red and black, and the orchid finger yin and yang are strange, leisurely holding cream fingers to do her own research and development medicine. It was a foreshadowing that paved the way for later explanations of the mistakes forged by the White Queen's selfishness as a child. The Red Queen's red hair, large head, short, dark red robe. Red symbolizes festivity, happiness, luck and wealth in China, but in the West red is blood and fire, symbolizing brutality, disaster, danger and terror. Therefore, the red of the Red Queen just reflects her brutal rule and bloodshed, but in fact, she has longed to be loved all her life, lonely and sensitive, and her ugly appearance has cast an increasingly obedient character, and the simple and naïve in her bones has to cover up weakness with fierceness.
What kind of terrible and hateful human nature is, that weakness is hidden in everyone's heart. The characterized "time" is dressed in black, and the mechanized body and the calm character are one with each other. Mad Hatter's orange hair and gothic smoky makeup accentuate his warm, funny, cute and confused side. Blue is also constantly repeated in the film, different blues represent different meanings, blue clothes of the big ostrich, caterpillar, Mr. Rabbit, the blue cat that comes and goes without a trace, these are all symbols of wisdom. Mr. Time's black is a kind of mystery, Alice once said that time is merciless, but black has unknowns in addition to mystery. The samurai black around the Red Queen and the red heart on her eyes are playful.
Alice has blonde hair, warm and soft. The film's character styling, especially the costumes, uses a lot of Chinese elements, which makes the audience feel more intimate. When alice attends the dance, alice wears a dress from the late Qing Dynasty and the beginning of the people, wears the same cloud shoulders and does not care about the opinions of others. This shows Alice's stubborn, rebellious, thoughtful, and adventurous spirit. In the 19th century, the ideas of freedom in the Victorian Renaissance were deeply rooted in the hearts of the people, especially the temporary awakening of women. However, the profundity of Chinese culture, especially the matching of clothing colors, foreigners often add their own way of understanding, although Alice is a Chinese element from beginning to end, but from color to the whole is more like singing. What resonated with Chinese audiences was that Alice spent most of the film wearing costumes with Chinese elements.
Two
Patriarchal Society and Women's Freedom
The profound meaning that the film wants to express is presented in the contrast between reality and dreams, as a way to reflect Alice's inner desire for entanglement and freedom, as well as the repressed psychology of being bound by traditional ideas. The ambivalence of reality is released in the dream, so that in the fairyland everything is symbolized through metaphor.
Freud said that the subconscious mind will go through a condensed process, manifesting itself in the form of dreams. Alice's self-anxiety is transformed into a pocket watch in the hands of the rabbit, that is, a kind of urgency of time; the brother-in-law who secretly steals love turns into a red knight who betrays the Red Queen; the fried neck dragon symbolizes the oppression of women in real society. The Red Queen is actually two sides of Alice's inner contradictions, which can be seen from the same small movements of the Red Queen, such as the constant trembling of her fingers as soon as she is nervous. The white queen's hypocrisy and lies are obvious, she symbolizes Alice's inner self that is bound under the low status of women, a self that seems elegant and dignified but does not conform to her heart; the red queen is actually as simple as a child, she just stops forever on the night when her head is hit, so when she is not happy, she will shout "Cut off his head!" She symbolizes Alice's inner resistance and rebellion against this social reality, which is an undisguised original self. The embodiment of this subconscious mind in the dream represents Alice's self-consciousness, the awakening of feminist consciousness.
Analyzing the film from the perspective of character positioning, we will find that the rulers of Wonderland are the Red Queen and the White Queen, both women, while in reality, before Queen Victoria succeeded to the throne, the rulers have always been men. At that time, under the social status of women, women were difficult to be recognized and respected, and this was achieved in dreams. In the dream, after Alice defeats the fried neck dragon, the Mad Hatter dances for her, while in reality it is often women who dance to meet the preferences of men. Alice in the dream is expected to save Wonderland from beginning to end, and her friends are hoping that she will save Wonderland, and in the end, Alice will defeat the Dragon with the Dynamite Neck. In the real world, the hero roles who save the world are often men, only men are required to learn knowledge and learn to fight and are needed by society, while women are seen as tools for procreation and unable to realize their self-worth.
From the perspective of the plot, we will compare reality and dreams, we will find that in the film, Alice found that her brother-in-law was secretly having an affair with someone else, and the brother-in-law threatened Alice with her sister's happiness not to say it, and she had to keep her mouth shut. In the social environment at that time, women's marriage was arranged by the family, and society believed that the greatest glory of women was to marry a powerful and decent "good" man, and whether or not they were happy after marriage, women should unconditionally tolerate their husbands. Alice's feelings in the dream are not bound by rules and regulations, she and mad hatter appreciate each other and help each other, which is the most real emotion from the heart, and it is also Alice's desire for freedom. Another plot that shows this strong contrast is that in reality, Alice dreams of becoming a navigator like her father, but due to the pressure of her relatives and friends around her and the constraints of female social status, Alice cannot achieve her dream.
Three
The image of a woman who breaks through the traditional model
Now, with the development of social economy and the increasing level of culture, women's thinking is becoming more and more independent, they are no longer attached to male life like the early Development of China, and now women have their own independent thoughts, they advocate freedom, brave and strong, and strive for their ideal life. Therefore, more and more movies are celebrating feminism, which is a true reflection of the actual system under the social system.
Set in 19th-century Britain, Alice in Wonderland shows the rise of feminism in a patriarchal society. From the perspective of character settings, they are basically dominated by women, the violent dictatorship of the Red Queen enjoys the exclusive royal power, the dignity and elegance of the White Queen, and the bravery and fearlessness of Alice. In the film, when the Red and White Queens were fighting, a warrior should have gone out for the White Queen, but it was Alice who went out in the palace with a majority of men, which reflected Alice's bravery; when the giant bear monster's eyes were injured, Alice took the initiative to return the eyes to the giant bear monster and touched it, which also reflected Alice's kindness. In real life, most women are carefully following the current rules under feudal dogma, women live a miserable life, they try to struggle and resist, but eventually succumb to discrimination and power, only a small number of women dare to say no to this power, their thoughts are more independent, more dare to fight against the evil forces, to seek the true self, Alice is a typical example.
In recent years, feminist films have emerged in an endless stream, this category of films in today's open, democratic, rapidly developing society still has great value significance, it looks at the differences between men and women in various areas of social life with a tending equal concept of ideology, and expands the living space for women in the state of equality between men and women, improves their social status, and allows more people to pay attention to this vulnerable group. Many film and television dramas with female themes not only need to show the female thoughts of the protagonists themselves, but also conduct in-depth exploration of women's self-awareness.
Women's issues are still a matter of discussion, feminism is uneven in different regions of today's society, and the social status of women in some developing countries is still underground. Therefore, feminist theory still has significant creative value in the future film market.