Please don't get involved in this, it's dangerous!
I watched the TV series Alice's Dreams (2023). This is a mystical detective, a thriller, a horror movie. Honestly, at first it attracted the name. Alice is my favorite name associated with something magical (Alice Carroll) and fantastic (Alice Selezneva). And here are her dreams!
The film is set in a small northern town whose name is not even mentioned. The beginning of winter. It's not snowing yet. There is no polar night.
Alice is a 15-year-old girl. He's in school. He takes mental pills, so everyone calls him "psychic." And with the teachers and the guys from school, Alice has a strained relationship. Alice doesn't sleep well at night (she says she hasn't slept for five days at the beginning of the film). Alice dreams of the future. When he wakes up, he tries to change everything. And Alice wants to get out of town.
At the beginning of the series there is a terrible murder of Alice’s friend Vicky. Alice's mother, a police officer, is investigating the case. But it turns out that she is not interested in solving the crime and tries to put everything on the brakes. Alice, using her gift of clairvoyance, with a friend she tries to investigate. But she's not good at that. Since the case involves two mentally ill, which further confuses the case. It turns out that children have long been missing in the city.
The first five episodes are unclear. Alice rushes through the city and the nearby dead village. It smells like surrealism and Twin Peaks. It's terrifying. Looking interesting and illogical. Moreover, the film involves the stars of domestic TV series, which play well. Children are slightly overplaying, but also cope with the roles.
In the fifth series, everything is told in plain text. And it immediately becomes uninteresting to watch, since there are too many inconsistencies and incomplete plot lines. Alice is chosen. A guide between worlds. In the meantime, Alice must die.
In the end, it all comes down to solving the conflict between mother and daughter.
The series was shown in Cannes and Berlin. Vasilina Yuskovets, who played Alice’s girlfriend, won the nomination “Best Actress” at the Pilot Festival. Good camera work and soundtrack. The special effects are primitive. We learned how to shoot, but here is the script pumped up.
It is impossible to save others if they do not want to. And if they want to, this is not always possible. Alas.
Careful. There are veiled spoilers.
You can endlessly compare the work with other already created series, films, stories. Frankly, I think people are trapped within their being and what we already know. It is normal for all of us to look and compare. Each creator does not implement his ideas out of emptiness, but mixes the familiar and brings his own.
I do not feel contempt for ideas that are similar. The main thing is how and for what this or that effect works, what semantic load, atmosphere, how the characters play.
I felt tension, danger and believed the heroes.
Everyone is familiar and leaves a heavy mark, frightening, fascinating (regardless of the country):
- Abandoned and Mysterious Place in the Night
- Abandoned children who need to look for answers themselves and be responsible not by age
- Deception of the closest, understatement, use
- Mystical Powers and Service to Them
The tragic loss of friends and relatives
Pedophilia, violence, murder, the feeling that there is no way out
- Unfulfilled dreams, life interrupted
- Human dependencies
- Silhouettes, persecution when there is no safe place
The atmosphere and pleasant professional work with color, light, music, scenery immerses.
I am very happy that cinema is changing in Russia.
Now for the deep.
Little Alice has become a huge unresolved lump, a clot of pain and fears. Did you see a mother afraid to touch a ball and dying herself? Ira gave up her child and then lived without love for her daughter's new version. This is what betrayal looks like for the good of the family, and after that - maintaining the situation in the name of duty. Of course, she is not able to face the truth and see the loneliness and fear of her little daughter. Touched a black clot and could not enter, shrunk, and eyes were poured with blood.
Nevertheless, Irina still missed and loved her girl, and little Alice blamed herself, was lost and lonely. Part of it was associated with an adult other Alice, who came out of the tunnel.
How sorry I am that adult Alice has to go through the loss of her childish part and the realization of how lonely she really is.
The determination of the character, the power to accept what happened ... connect the lost and be left alone with themselves, abilities and questions to themselves.
It is impossible to save others if they do not want to.
And if they want to, this is not always possible. Alas
A pertinent plot understatement. Maybe Irina died, because that's why she could walk away with a little version of Alice or not. Can Little Alice in physical embodiment exist separately from the adult Alice or not?
Adult Alice is not empty, but not the same child, has she let in another creature and is it, or has she just changed her character? If she just changed, would Irina not be able to leave with a small version of her daughter, or are these all associative games over their separation?
Same questions for blood drops. Alice began to see blood in the sky outside of dreams or are these clues for viewers?
Thank you, I was interested!
I especially liked costumes suspended in the dark, as faceless accomplices.
The composition in which Alice lay near the tunnel, and thin stripes of light nearby. An interesting design, resembling doors, was also fascinating.
And the plot twist with Vika at the very beginning upset and surprised, thanks to the first series that I decided to watch.
You may not like it.
And as for me, I am glad that the series from Russia and I are not sick of it.
Not yesterday, he noted that if you include any Russian series, if not half, then at least one third is quite consistent with analogues from Europe. It is difficult to say what is there with American series, because for a long time no longer the viewer, but the series about American cops still significantly surpass the series about domestic cops.
I wanted to write that, say, let's move away from the topic of the police, but "Alice's Dreams" does not have this in mind. Already from the first series, events swirl at the speed of a whirlpool and grow like a Karelian snowball. There are questions, the locals keep a lot of secrets. Missing children, the police, as if doing the wrong thing, cold, snow, hopelessness. And among all this is a girl who in the world of dreams is trying to find answers to the mysteries wandering around and trying to keep her mind.
Unfortunately, that’s what the writers did the worst. The beginning of the series and its development came out just for a look. Winter Karelia is simply chicly disposed to films of this kind. The majestic and icy nature, favorably emphasized by the cold design of high-tech apartments in the middle of a geographical nowhere, flavored with a pinch of throws, seems to specifically slow down what is happening on the screen, because the events are eight-part with excess.
This is the biggest disappointment of the series. It is difficult to say that the creators did not have enough money, or suffered from excessive imagination, but almost no storyline was completed. If the main story raft, telling about the girl Alice, was still somehow dragged to the logical conclusion (very good, by the way), then all the other lines led nowhere. No, of course, some minor characters stumbled upon a logical ending, but these are particulars, without which the plot would simply have gone into very impassable snowdrifts.
For good, the series had to stretch to ten or twelve episodes to put everything on the shelves in a leisurely style, the benefit of the setting to that has. However, I have an opinion that this is a local scourge of the Russian serial industry. If the series is good, then the fantasy writers somewhere dry up or, conversely, it is not enough to interestingly finish the product.
And this could be the only drawback of the picture, if not for the performers of the role of teenagers. Alina Gvasalia, Matvey Novikov, Maria Chukalskaya, Evgeny Egorov, all of them do not pull on the role of schoolchildren directly, that is, in no way. Alina's face is too old. It's a mistress here, sorry. The only one hundred percent hit was Taisya Kalinina, organically fit into the desired range, however, dressed in fashion seven years ago.
There are no complaints against adult actors. It is clear that people wander from the series to the series and in the cold detachment of the same Vilkova is many times better than in sensuality. Of the small drawbacks, that even despite the interesting, overall product, do not have time to move away from Rosin in the role of a transplantologist from the TV series “Kidney” as he is already here. Same Denis Shvedov again. The child and Vilkova recently lit up in 1993 and here again together, but closer than there.
In general, if you summarize all of the above, the creators, authors, creators and others involved, you are good! You can see you're trying. You can see that you want to surprise the audience. But to be surprised, not perplexed, please develop the story organically, do not cut tails if it seems that you have reached a dead end and please change the casting parameters a little. When an 18-year-old actress plays a 16-year-old schoolgirl, it's normal. You can believe it. But when a 30-year-old woman does the same, it is difficult to ignore the dissonance.
6.5 out of 10
It is gratifying to see the efforts of domestic cinema after the very successful series “Territory” to continue working in the genre of noir mysticism, only transferred to the realities of domestic life. But I can’t say that this time the attempt was successful. No, the impressions of the picture are very positive - the work of the operator, specialists in lighting, graphics, colorist and artist at a very high level and it should be noted. But then everything starts to limp.
The script is very confused, the storylines are not clearly built, it is difficult to follow the viewer. Many things do not understand why they are shown and exist. Old Scandinavian runes carved on painted oil paint shoal doors of Soviet Khrushchevka or painted here and there Uncle Vasya plumber on the basement wall generally cause frank laughter. Why is it? As well as numerous, usually unsuccessful, movie quotes. From Twin Peaks to Stephen King. When the well-known red balloon galloped along the steps of the provincial hospital, instead of the fear of the imminent arrival of a well-known character, it caused nothing but a feeling that the filmmakers, due to the lack of their own creativity, have to resort to such frank borrowings (despite the fact that the film has a lot of really original noir images).
But the main claim to the game of actors. If adults try something, and sometimes even they succeed, then the entire teenage cast is outright horror! Playing at the school play level. I mean, no play. If in the already mentioned "Territory" in this way played the actor only Gleb Kalyuzhny, then here all young people do so. Especially a failure in this regard, the main character. Her choices are blatantly unfortunate. Not that she should be beautiful, not at all, but there must be some image! Partly mystical, partly tragic, but, most importantly, interesting for the viewer, causing the feeling that the girl really has the gift of communication with the mystical world, that she is unusual, despite the fact that she lives in an ordinary city and studies in an ordinary school among ordinary people. And here is an unremarkable and, most importantly, not sympathetic from the viewer Peteusnitsa with a stone face, on which we do not see any emotions.
That’s what ruined such a great series. But the camera work once again I want to note and put a solid five for it.
A very worthy series, surprisingly, one of the answers to the question - what will happen if you combine our Russian reality, the films of Tarkovsky, Dani Villeneuve, and the series Darkness? It will be such an atmospheric 'mystic-drama-noir', something like that.
Initially, everything looks like a banal drama, of which a great many have already shot, but literally from the third series, the series drags into the whirlpool of mysticism and the parallel world, interesting plot twists.
The camera work is at a very decent level, each frame plays to the fullest in combination with atmospheric music. In Alice’s dreams, we can sometimes see literally copied scenes from Tarkovsky’s films, and in many other scenes we can trace references to the film Dune, Dani Villeneuve, shots with a bathtub and black liquid, shots in the style of Giger, the author of Aliens, etc.
All the actors play well, there are no claims to anyone at all, as it usually happens in our cinema, the main character, Alice, very well conveys emotions, the moment when you really care for the main character. I want to see her in a big movie.
In general, very decent, the plot does not jump, does not fail, the script and characters are written perfectly, there is no excessive blackness and blood, the authors managed to maintain a balance.
It would be interesting to see from the authors of some fantastic film, or a series in the style of Dune, the atmosphere they convey very well.
Lovers of quality series and mysticism can safely watch.
Personally for me, the series is another confirmation that in the world of TV series we will be able to bypass Scandinavian noir. The landscapes are colder and more picturesque, the actors are more unperturbed, and we have the most real, Russian. Although Alice's Dreams isn't exactly noir, it's more of a mystical thriller with elements of teenage psychology.
I am a simple person, so pros and cons.
Pros:
1) Landscapes, snow-capped pines, unperturbed winter surface, polar darkness. On the one hand, it inspired hopelessness, on the other, on the contrary, something attractive.
2) A retreat into local mythology. After the “Territory” with hiccups and pam, “Dead Lake” with shamans and spirits, it became finally clear, we have our own legends, our beliefs. They are much more interesting for the domestic audience. There are also rituals, writing, outfits. It looks great.
(3) The plot. I don’t like the tempo in the Scandinavian series. If you watch in the evening after eleven, you can go to the sleepy realm. In "Alice's Dreams" everything is quite dynamic, events, murders, chases, unnecessary dialogue at a minimum.
Cons:
1) A lot of stuff. Here is the topic of teenage problems with parents, and the topic of provincialism, and a detective, and a thriller, and the finale of the mystic. I think it would be better to look like a psychological thriller or a mystical thriller. In this case, the polygamy did not play.
2) Metaphorical. There are some attempts to copy Lynch, there are departures into incomprehensibility, nonlinear narrative. To reveal psychology through mysticism, in some places it looked difficult.
Conclusion: I advise you to look, it was interesting, there was intrigue until the last scene, there was a lot of northern aesthetics.
7 out of 10