Friday, January 06, 2006
Narnia Narnia Narnia…My Review and Thoughts
Narnia, Narnia Narnia…
Okay, people have been asking my opinions, my review, and some questions about the film, and after seeing it last night, here is my take:
1) I love the film as a film! I dare say that I enjoyed more than any of the three Lord of the Rings movies, which, were of course, fantastic.
2) I believe that it was also a good adaptation of Lewis’s book. Sometimes a movie can be good, but do such a poor job of fairly representing the book that has actually brought people to the theaters that it makes the whole experience dreadful. See Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban for one such example.
3) I though the additions were masterful and the changes acceptable.
The Blitz at the Beginning – this was powerful. For one, it gives context that Lewis’s original readers would have had. The readers when the book was first released knew what life was like in 1941 and why the kids were off in the north all by their lonesome. Both my wife (Tanya) and I never realized that the kids didn’t know the Professor, that they were shipped, en masse, to the countryside for safety. It provides a context for all their struggles that makes so much more sense.
The Picture Frames – this was another brilliant addition. Edmund clearly misses his dad and the scene of him running back to the house to get the picture drives this home. Sure he resents his older brother (who doesn’t 
, but it is his older brother there in the place of his dad that hurts the most. But then, in the house of Tumnus after the ransacking by the wolves, we see, at Edmund’s feet, Tumnus’s father’s picture, also with broken glass. The two sons, both of whom were traitors, both of whom in the end honouring their Fathers by doing the right thing for the right side in the end. It makes both Edmund and Tumnus’ moral faults both more painful and more understandable.
The Scene on the Frozen River – this scene, especially in a world where many want to escape the war on terror by simply saying, “This is not our war.” I love the wolf’s bargain with Peter, “Take your family and go home, this ain’t your war.” How simple it would have been to have taken the wolf at his word and just gone home. But of course, it is never that simple.
A number of people have complained, not just now but when the books were released about the presence of Father Christmas in Narnia. How can that be they ask? Isn’t Aslan Jesus? Well, yes and no. Jesus is the Son of God and Aslan is the same Son of God (or the Emperor beyond the Sea). And we see in the Last Battle that in fact, they are the same person.
There is an excellent book that came out a number of years ago called A Christian for All Christians, which is a series of essays. One of those essays deals with the question of writing fiction in light of the incarnation. Lewis in his different books writes of the Incarnation alongside the Cross, before the cross and after the cross. This makes some people (Tolkein included) upset, but I think it shows Lewis’s larger vision of reality.
Think about the things that are in both Narnia and in our world. There is of course, Father Christmas, but also tea, sardines, beer and tobacco. All things that Lewis considered among the best of this world. Not only is the reality of evil a cross world reality, but so are good things.
Also remember that St. Nicholas is a model of the true follower of Jesus – one who is completely devoted to Christ and, in the modern adaptation, gives without receiving and gives freely. What better cross-world reality.
And of course, what better way to tell kids the sad state of Narnia than “Always winter and never Christmas?”
One of the clearest realities in the movie is that the evil that the kids are fleeing in leaving London is the same evil that is currently ruling in Narnia. The opening scene with the blitz and then the opening of the battle, both pictures of airborne bombing, paints this perfectly. Note however, that while evil is bombing civilians from the air, the side of good is using essentially the same weapon (bombing from the air, though it must be noted, flying living creatures vs. the mechanistic tools of the German military industrial state). The action is not what is evil, the goal is. Terror vs. the defense of all that is good and beautiful. As the movie and the books also make clear, war is a horrible thing, but it is not the most horrible. The reign of evil and injustice is!
Okay, so what about the complaints of the movie?
1) Why no “Emperor Beyond the Sea”?
The simple answer is that it’s not necessary. Remember, its film, not a book. Great movies make you want to read the book. This movie does this. And, the Emperor is not totally missing: “Don’t remind me of the deep magic, witch, I was there when it was written!” is Aslan’s pointing to someone even great than himself. I think that such references, while I would have absolutely have put them in, are harder to pull off in a movie than in a book. Unless you are going to say who this Emperor is, it feels forced. If they tell you who the Emperor is, then the movie does begin to become more directly Christian, which will limit its appeal. Remember, this movie is not an evangelistic tract. Even the books were not meant to be such. They are “pre-baptismal” in Lewis’s words.
2) Why were the beavers all about being funny?
Personally, I love the beavers in this movie. You needed humour, and this movie had it, and plenty. It is a family movie remember. And making the beavers the running jokers I think worked well. Actually the humour in the movie worked well as a whole. Funnies line comes from Susan: “It’s a beaver…Its not supposed to be saying anything!” But that is a taste thing.
3) “So much for love” and the absence of the “Deeper Magic.”
Again, these are changes that had to be made for the sake of it being a movie, rather than a miniseries. Do I regret the lack of the mention of the “deeper magic” and resorting to “love”? Sure, but, the movie is not holy writ, so it’s not going to be perfect.
4) The most egregious – taking from the beavers “Whose said anything about safe, but he’s good.”
I am not entirely sure why they took this from the beavers. I suppose you cannot have these funny comedic beavers saying anything quite so serious. It is the most regrettable change. They do give the lines in a smaller form at the end, between Lucy and Tumnus, but then it’s the “tame lion” line. Note well that at the time we are in the beavers house, no one has said that Aslan is a lion. I think they wanted to hold the tension til you first see the tent open and the Great King pads forwarded. Would I have made the change? No, but come on folks, I think we can live with it. Besides, I see a certain power, especially for people who are very postmodern (as many in the audience will be) who have now seen, not just by legend, that indeed this lion is good, even if he is not safe, as the witch found out. To the postmodern mind, with its incredulity towards great statements, especially loony ones like “A lion is good” perhaps the line does belong at the end, when we have seen that indeed, this lion is the only one who is truly good.
So there you have it. I love the movie. It will be a keeper and watched over and over in my household. Perhaps the best thing that I can say for the film, as a Christian, is that after watching it, I was like Lucy in response to Father Christmas: “Sir, I think I can be brave enough.” As a theologian and someone striving to honour Christ with my life, I particularly like films that not just encourage my faith, but challenge me to live it with a deeper and more profound commitment and courage. In that sense Narnia, like the greatest movie every made, Luther (1994), deserves and A+.
