Alice in Wonderland definitely showed this wonderment since practically everything is completely different from real life. Rabbits with watches, people made out of a pack of cards, a talking doorknob, these are not things that happen every day. It had many metaphors that could be related to things in life, however, both from those days and now in different ways. Animation is about achieving wonderment that was impossible in real life, until times of late.
The way Alice in Wonderland related to life back then is that everyone has to go through life changes, and learn to deal with these changes in their own ways. World War II ended in 1945 and even in 1951, when this film was made, people were still having to live with the after effects of WWII and learn to cope with the consequences that war brings. Alice went through many life changes, as well. She met very strange people along her journey, as did post-WWII Americans with these odd new immigrants coming to America for a new start. One in particular that perplexed her the most was the Caterpillar. He was a blue, singing caterpillar with a hookah that spoke very different and confusing words. Americans were having to learn how to adjust to many of their men bringing back their foreign wives who had their own language and customs.
Alice in Wonderland relates to today in a very different, more simplistic way. This film seems to encourage under-aged drinking, taking candy from strangers, and going on drug trips. I say this because there is a bottle saying “drink me” at the beginning that the talking doorknob tells her to drink, there are candies in several places with the tag “eat me,” and the very end scene while she's coming out of her sleep-like trance (where everyone is chasing her with “don't let her get away” and “please wake up Alice, Alice, Alice”). She listened to a stranger and drank a bottle of unknown liquid just because he said it would help. She also listened to him again with the strange candy because he said it would help. These are all things that today's children have to deal with and learn to avoid strangers giving them odd things because it will, essentially, cause something like her last scene in the dream land, full of fear, desperation, and confusion.
Alice in Wonderland conveyed all of these in a believable, realistic, and lovely way using a drawn version of day light, hard and soft key lights, vibrant coloring, and rear projections. The day light was generally only used in scenes of normality, such as before and after being in the dream world with the woman reading the book. But the extreme contrasts and vibrant colors were used in times of abnormality, such as in the dream world with the scene where she is crying in the beginning and nearing the end, where she is speaking with the Cheshire Cat, and where she is in the court room and the Queen of Hearts appears angry. The only space that had rear projections was in the grande finale scene where she is running away and slowly regaining consciousness after this drug trip of a dream.
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