Director Jan Svankmajer had been disappointed by other adaptations of Carroll's book, which interpret it as a fairy tale. His aim was instead to make the story play out like an amoral dream.
Director Jan Svankmajer believed that Lewis Carroll wrote the original Alice novel to reflect the logic of a dream. So he tried to reflect dream logic in the film. In Svankmajer's view, dreams represent a human's secret wishes, without considering rational and moral inhibitions.
In the film, the stuffed rabbit which comes to life has an inscription which identifies it as a "Lepus cuniculus". That is a former scientific name for the European rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus), as it was originally classified in the genus Lepus (hares) by taxonomists. The European rabbit was consigned to its own genus in 1874, due to significant differences from the hares in morphology and behavior.
Every time Alice attempts to open up a drawer, the handle seems to break off.