The 1970s "porno chic" must've truly been a "Golden Age of Porn;" 1976 alone witnessed two such features partially inspired by Lewis Carroll's Alice books, and they're both preferable to some of the smut that passed for mainstream adaptations of the children's literature during the same period. Sure, there's no pornographic sex in the books, but neither are there bubbly characters breaking into mostly dull song and dance numbers every few minutes. The other Alice porno of 1976, "Alice in Wonderland: An X-Rated Musical" contains both and, thus, is something of a perverse Disney-esque production. "Through the Looking Glass," on the other hand, is actually rather intelligent--so is even some of the hardcore sex. Although it takes its title from the second Alice book, this film isn't an explicit Carrollian adaptation, with themes of incest, a Dantean Inferno, and old-dark-house tropes that have nothing to do with Alice. Yet, all of this is engaged through the mirror, along with other hints of references to Carroll's texts, and manages to interpret the books in one of the usual more competent ways, as a parable for growing up.
In this case, initiation to adulthood is mixed up with fatherly molestation and rape, but other than that it's not an inept interpretation of the text. Plus, this patriarchal system is congruent with the picture's aestheticizing of the male gaze (as theoreticized by the likes of Laura Mulvey). It reminds me of another Alice-adjacent film from the same period, Claude Chabrol's "Alice or the Last Escapade" (1977), which also features a female protagonist who thoroughly internalizes the male gaze, goes through glass (in Chabrol's case, a broken car window) and occupies a haunted house with a locked door to the supernatural in what is, overall, an exploitative, if not misogynist, exercise in filmmaking. The door and key business here, along with the mirror, recalls the Alice books. And, to underscore, the importance of the architecture in this one, the husband is an architect, and the protagonist Catherine is haunted from growing up in the house--retreating to the attic behind the door to relive those memories beside the mirror and other objects of her upbringing.
Besides the door and key, as well as a clock motif, another possible subtle callback to the first book, "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland," takes place at the beginning, where Catharine's chauffeur informs her that she's running late--in this case, for her and hubby's dinner date with another couple. On their way home, too, we see her daughter, Jennifer, running beside the car. Wearing blue-and-white dresses throughout most of the proceedings, Jennifer here is the new dream-child, the Alice. Catherine even mentions that Jennifer is starring in a school play in the same role she once occupied--perhaps, it's the role of Alice in a staging of Carroll's books.
As for the male gaze, it's arguably even more the traditional foundation of pornography than it is mainstream or Hollywood cinema, with a camera's gaze based on the presumed male spectator for looking upon the female body. Here, we get the mirror, which is already strongly associative with movies, of reflecting ghosts upon a surface. This mirror that Catherine masturbates in front of--or, "looking-glass vagina," to borrow Nina Auerbach's phrasing (as cited in "Alice in Pornoland: Hardcore Encounters with the Victorian Gothic" by Laura Helen Marks)--is not associated with her narcissism so much as it is with her dead father's gaze. Speaking of a "phallic camera," one of the most apt coitus encounters here begins with a focus on the father's penis, including in the form of a tracking shot, as he exits the mirror to attack his daughter. Aside from the graphic nudity and sex, with the monster threatening the heroine and a storm outside blowing through the attic's open window, it's the kind of filmmaking one would expect from classical cinema.
Not everything works, though. The incestuously complementary subplot of the brother-and-sister servants isn't developed any further than needed to establish another fellatio scene. The fantasy sequence resembling a pornographic mad tea party (although, it's really more of a banquet or picnic serving as an excuse for an orgy), while it includes a doppelgänger, is otherwise weighed down by the orgic excess. One shot that looks to be from a colonoscopy-like medical camera is arguably too obscene of a double entendre of Alice and the "rabbit hole" even for a porno. But, then, there are scenes such as the adroit combination of sex scene and old-dark-house, stormy-night imagery aforementioned; or some decent cutting for Catherine's conversation with herself, internalizing her father's gaze in front of the looking-glass; and, to top it off, that Dantean finale that is as good a horror-film nightmare as can be found in much of cinema in general.
In this case, initiation to adulthood is mixed up with fatherly molestation and rape, but other than that it's not an inept interpretation of the text. Plus, this patriarchal system is congruent with the picture's aestheticizing of the male gaze (as theoreticized by the likes of Laura Mulvey). It reminds me of another Alice-adjacent film from the same period, Claude Chabrol's "Alice or the Last Escapade" (1977), which also features a female protagonist who thoroughly internalizes the male gaze, goes through glass (in Chabrol's case, a broken car window) and occupies a haunted house with a locked door to the supernatural in what is, overall, an exploitative, if not misogynist, exercise in filmmaking. The door and key business here, along with the mirror, recalls the Alice books. And, to underscore, the importance of the architecture in this one, the husband is an architect, and the protagonist Catherine is haunted from growing up in the house--retreating to the attic behind the door to relive those memories beside the mirror and other objects of her upbringing.
Besides the door and key, as well as a clock motif, another possible subtle callback to the first book, "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland," takes place at the beginning, where Catharine's chauffeur informs her that she's running late--in this case, for her and hubby's dinner date with another couple. On their way home, too, we see her daughter, Jennifer, running beside the car. Wearing blue-and-white dresses throughout most of the proceedings, Jennifer here is the new dream-child, the Alice. Catherine even mentions that Jennifer is starring in a school play in the same role she once occupied--perhaps, it's the role of Alice in a staging of Carroll's books.
As for the male gaze, it's arguably even more the traditional foundation of pornography than it is mainstream or Hollywood cinema, with a camera's gaze based on the presumed male spectator for looking upon the female body. Here, we get the mirror, which is already strongly associative with movies, of reflecting ghosts upon a surface. This mirror that Catherine masturbates in front of--or, "looking-glass vagina," to borrow Nina Auerbach's phrasing (as cited in "Alice in Pornoland: Hardcore Encounters with the Victorian Gothic" by Laura Helen Marks)--is not associated with her narcissism so much as it is with her dead father's gaze. Speaking of a "phallic camera," one of the most apt coitus encounters here begins with a focus on the father's penis, including in the form of a tracking shot, as he exits the mirror to attack his daughter. Aside from the graphic nudity and sex, with the monster threatening the heroine and a storm outside blowing through the attic's open window, it's the kind of filmmaking one would expect from classical cinema.
Not everything works, though. The incestuously complementary subplot of the brother-and-sister servants isn't developed any further than needed to establish another fellatio scene. The fantasy sequence resembling a pornographic mad tea party (although, it's really more of a banquet or picnic serving as an excuse for an orgy), while it includes a doppelgänger, is otherwise weighed down by the orgic excess. One shot that looks to be from a colonoscopy-like medical camera is arguably too obscene of a double entendre of Alice and the "rabbit hole" even for a porno. But, then, there are scenes such as the adroit combination of sex scene and old-dark-house, stormy-night imagery aforementioned; or some decent cutting for Catherine's conversation with herself, internalizing her father's gaze in front of the looking-glass; and, to top it off, that Dantean finale that is as good a horror-film nightmare as can be found in much of cinema in general.