Chronicles of Narnia.

First of all, I should probably, not apologize, but explain my delight in the profanity employed in the previous post. I am a fan of laguage and I love to see it used well. This includes the more esoteric catagories such as profanity. Anyone can pepper their speech with swear words, but to see cursing done with such skill and flair brings me a great deal of amusement.

Secondly, I am training the the new hire for desk I have been occupying over the summer, so my computer access is limited ergo, my posts a bit fewer and futher between.

O.k. On to the show, this film I had a *lot* of trepidation seeing. I was raised on the Narnia books. I some of my earliest memories were of my mother reading those stories to us. Tolkien I encountered later in my childhood and didn’t gain a full appreciation for until I was an adult, but his friend Lewis’ Narnia always had a layer I could access, no matter what age I picked the books up at. Rich in imagination, symbolism and a good adventurous romp, Narnia always made me laugh, cry and think. The stories not only helped set the scope of my imagination, they helped reinforce the groundwork of much of my moral code.

Plus I’m very possessive about certain written works. I hate listening to poetry or good prose because I have read the words and hear their cadence and emphasis in my head. I have my own interpretation. Hearing someone else reading of Whitman’s Song of Myself or Joyce’s The Dead is disturbing because the way they speak the words, the subtleties of meaning they ascribe to them doesn’t match my own. But then, hearing another’s way of seeing those works of art helps us to understand it a little better, but still…I’m possessive.

So as you can tell, I did not really look forward to The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe as a film.

I had some trouble in the beginning, I had never seen Edmund as having any emotional impetus for being a rotten kid, he was just self-absorbed and resentful as many kids can be (Gods know I was a rotten kid), nor do I remember Peter being so overbearing, but all in all it was a good and faithful interpretation. It’s a great story and they didn’t mess with it. The characters are well done. I did find Jadis a little….I saw her as being more insidious than portrayed. What she says to Aslan on the table, “In that knowledge, despair and die…” was whispered in his ear. The film version was a bit too brutish to be really scary. The effect of course…the Griffins rocked and you get to see why having Centaurs on your side in a battle is a very good thing. They did a wonderful job on all the animals and creatures so I think I can forgive Weta from re-staging the assault on Helms Deep with the lone Minotuar/Uruki on the outcropping waving his troops forward. And the kids did a good job, I can imagine how hard it must have been for them to play such iconic character while being young and inexperienced and having to hold the story together while shooting so much of it against a green screen.

They included Professor Kirk who is, for those that have not read the series, Digory Kirk from the dark prequel: The Magicians Nephew. If you really want some theology to think about, that one’s a dozy.

And Rupert Evret as the Fox. *thumbs up*

But somehow I just didn't get the full emotional impact...maybe because books inherently engage more of the imagination and ergo, I am used to experiencing that story on a deeper level.

One thing I always loved about Lewis’ books was his depiction of the Divine through Aslan, son of Emperor Over the Sea. A phrase often repeated when referring to him, and as Mr. Tumus said at the end of the film, “Well, he’s not a tame lion…” The meaning I take is two pronged. One: God does not serve man. He is not a pet. God does not do and say what we may have him/her do or say. He/She is themselves and you must take him/her as they are, not as you want them to be. The second meaning was the natural aspect of the divine that has been eliminated from the monotheistic religions. Aslan is a force of nature, a wild entity of both great creation and destruction. He brings springtime and war. Death and renewal. His sacrifice on the stone table for Edmund is of course, analogous to Christ’s sacrifice on the cross for the sins of mankind as Lewis meant it to be, but Christ was not the only God to sacrifice himself yearly. As I have pointed out before many ancient pagan religious systems contained a God who brought virile spring and summer and died in the wintertime, a sacrifice to the eternal cycle of life, death and rebirth. By depicting him as a lion, Lewis brought nature back to God. God created this world and it is a part of him and he is a part of it. Aslan, like God, is part of nature and yet beyond any of our concepts of it. It’s a pretty mind-boggling idea when you really sit down to consider the paradox of it: Being wholly of and yet wholly other at the same time.

Well, hopefully they will go one through the Pevensie children’s adventures and get to The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. I would pay some serious cash to see Reepicheep in action but who would the voice talent be?