Clothes on Film

A fully long and weird trailer for Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland has landed in cyberspace. The costumes are magnifico.

Rather than kick Lewis Carroll’s famous novel off from scratch, Tim Burton has chosen to return Alice (played by Mia Wasikowska) to Wonderland after a hopeless marriage proposal. Judging by this trailer, Burton’s Wonderland will be a place of colourful vistas, colourful characters and with Johnny Depp’s bright orange Mad Hatter barnet, colourful hair. A lot of colour then, basically.

The costumes by Burton regular Colleen Atwood (Big Fish, The Silence of the Lambs) are awe-inspiring. Helena Bonham Carter as The Red Queen is drenched in a beautifully rich red and black overskirt, while Wasikowska gets several changes including an embroidered white gown, frock style blue coat and gold armour. Johnny Depp is not a million miles away from Wonka in his outfit. It is starting to get believable that he dresses this way on his own time.

All in all this bolt-on to the teaser trailer released earlier this year impresses. It is nothing we would not expect from visionary Burton, although the CGI/live-action mix is somewhat jarring on a small screen. Still, it did just about work for his comedy horror Beetle Juice (1988) with stop motion all those years ago. Alice in Wonderland will be presented in 3D too, where it will likely knock all our socks off.

For our money, Bonham Carter is the one to watch in this one. Obviously having a gas, in these early snippets there is more than a hint of Miranda Richardson’s ‘Queenie’ from Blackadder II (1986) about her performance. Perfectly pitched as daft and supremely menacing enough in other words.

Alice in Wonderland starring Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, Mia Wasikowska and Anne Hathaway is due out 5th March 2010. Seems like a long way off? It isn’t, in two weeks time there will be Easter eggs in the shops.

Drop by and see Maggie at The Costumer’s Guide for more about this movie’s amazing costumes.

© 2009, Chris Laverty. All rights reserved.

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