The sequel to "Alice Through the Looking Glass' offers more surreal hand of a young director

It was inevitable that Walt Disney Studios made a sequel to "Alice in Wonderland". The film directed by Tim Burton in 2010 raised more than a billion dollars in international box office and caused producers around Hollywood think like the White Rabbit: "It's getting late, we're late," and hurry to shoot movies based on stories. It was obvious that they should give him another bite Alice fungus.

But the decision to return to Disney absurd and fantastic world of Lewis Carroll had an element of surprise: the British director James Bobin.

When he was hired to direct "Alice Through the Looking Glass", the film $ 170 million to be released on May 27, Bobin had only directed two films of "The Muppets" on a moderate budget. In fact, Bobin perhaps was best known for his work on television as creator of the eccentric "Flight of the Conchords" on HBO and being writer-director of "Da Ali G Show," where he helped Sacha Baron Cohen created program different adult characters.



Disney has chosen English James Bobin to direct the new film "Alice". Credit Bryan Sheffield for The New York Times
Was that the ace up his sleeve Disney?

The reasoning is apparent to meet Bobin, as I did late last month. You need only consider, for example, the frantic answer he gave to a simple question about why he was attracted by the story of Alice, "I thought it would be interesting to take the beautiful world that Tim created in the first film and carry it further with a little madness and surrealism, as well as the Victorian idea of ​​fantasy. I also wanted to add comedy, because that's what I've worked, while closely following the main story, which is very emotional: the comedy and emotion are very important. "

the huge dark glasses he wore settled and continued: "You know ?, Lewis Carroll was not interested in cause and effect or linear arguments. This is the surreal, the absurd puns, satire and self-analysis. It is also funny and that's a big challenge. "

When he finished answering, he threw his head back and laughed with a cheerful and slightly uncontrolled laughter.

I watched intently. "Are you crazy, right?" I said, using a phrase from the movie.

"The best it are always" he replied, without hesitation.

The sympathetic Bobin, who had success with "The Muppets" and failed to "Muppets Most Wanted" is the latest unknown director to benefit from the Hollywood obsession with movies such franchises. The desire of studies to extend the sequels to infinity leads to consider that the most appropriate directors are the ones who show a strong sensitivity and sense of ambition but who still lack a catalog of films, and therefore are more manageable in the arts.

Disney marketing also benefited Bobin. To sell tickets for the sequel to "Alice in Wonderland" Disney wanted to announce the film as "" Tim Burton (Burton never considered direct the sequel). So the study needed a filmmaker who not yet reached such notoriety.

It was not easy to convince Bobin, 43. Even pressured Linda Woolverton, who wrote the script, so that will add to a main character named Time, a creature half human, half clock that controls how eternity develops and pursues Alicia.

"When I entered the project, there was only a first draft of the script," said Bobin. "Linda had written a nice story about time travel; in it, Alicia goes to the past to save the family of the Mad Hatter. I said, 'Wait a minute. And if we do that Time is a person? Time may use a bright object to travel in time. Then Alice could maybe steal the object and interrupt the continuity. Unintentionally, it causes the time the chase ".

"With that story a good narrative drive is obtained. So I did ".

Bobin turned to a friend, Cohen, to play the role. "For me there is nothing funnier than when Sacha plays a competent idiot," Bobin said, adding that Cohen worked "largely" with character creation.

Woolverton, a legend of Disney who wrote "Beauty and the Beast" and "Maleficent", among others, was the sole writer credit. "James suggested the idea of ​​time, but I did not written anything," said Woolverton. "We developed the character together."

Like the previous film, "Alice Through the Looking Glass" also has a distinctly feminist trend. All players are back, including Mia Wasikowska as Alice Kingsleigh, Helena Bonham Carter as the Queen of Hearts, Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter and Anne Hathaway as the White Queen.

But the sequel is very different. The story, made mostly by a completely new argument, "explores the 'why' of this world," Woolverton said. "Why the Queen of Hearts, for example, has that big head?". (The explanation has to do with a drop in childhood, inspired by an accident he suffered as a child Woolverton. "I slipped with a pickle juice and hit my head").



Alice, Mia Wasikowska, meet Time, played by Sacha Baron Cohen. Disney Credit
The story also explores Depp's character, who this time is more sad than mad. His orange hair is neatly combed and wearing a suit. ( "How you are sick if you're crazy?" Bobin asked. "It's like being sane?") The White Queen goes to Alicia to kick his trance the Mad Hatter, and she uses the rotating sphere of Time -called Cronósfera- to navigate the Oceans of Time, which were created by computer; in them you will encounter many bizarre creatures.

Time, for example, has called Seconds robot assistants who can be stacked as Minions to form larger entities called minutes. There are also Humpty Dumpty and the Blue Caterpillar (last prominent role of actor Alan Rickman), now a Blue Butterfly. Mad Hatter's father, Zanik Hightoop (Rhys Ifans), also appears in a scene.

"The film should have the style of Carroll in their difficulty," said Bobin. "I think one of the achievements of the film is that my 8 year old daughter understands."