’
Alice), by writer/director Chloé Mazlo, is a semi-autobiographical blending of the personal and political, centered on the impact of the Lebanese Civil War (1975-1990) on one family. It is a poetic, imaginative and colorful work that uses stop-motion animation and surrealistic drama to make its point about the irrationality of war and internecine, ethnic conflict.
In the 1950s, a young Swiss woman disconnects from her tight-knit family—dramatized in claymation—to move to Beirut. Once in Lebanon, Alice (Alba Rohrwacher), now turned into a human, falls in love with Joseph (Wajdi Mouawad—author of the play
Incendies, the source material for Denis Villeneuve’s 2010 film of the same title), an eccentric astrophysicist who dreams of sending one of his fellow citizens into space.