Making Magic Matter – The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe

Although the movie is a few years old, I said that I’d be doing a review of The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe for this week’s entry, as Prince Caspian is slated to open in a little over two weeks. Regrettably, I wasn’t able to complete it Friday due to a number of circumstances, but here it is, now two days late.

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A few years down the road from the theatrical release of Walden Media’s The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, we’ve seen the release of a four disc extended edition – I haven’t seen it yet, but I’d like to compare at some point – and the long awaited production of Prince Caspian, set for release on May 16. I thought I’d take the opportunity to revisit Narnia on film, and look at some of the important points of the first installment of The Chonicles of Narnia.

The Chronicles of Narnia : The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe follows the four Pevensie children, Lucy (Georgie Henley), Edmund (Skandar Keynes), Susan (Anna Popplewell) and Peter (William Moseley) from London after the Blitz to the country estate of Professor Digory Kirke (Jim Broadbent). Playing a game of hide and seek, Lucy stumbles on a wardrobe that opens to the magical land of Narnia. There she meets a faun, Mr. Tumnus (James AcAvoy) and sets in motion a chain of events that promises the fulfillment of a prophecy long present in the land, that two Sons of Adam and two Daughters of Eve will come from a far land and sit in the four empty thornes of Cair Paravel, there to rule Narnia. Determined to stop the prophecy from being fulfilled, Jadis, The White Witch (Tilda Swinton) seeks to capture or kill the children at all costs and ensure her continued dominion of the land.

Arguably the most competently organized and faithfully representative allegory of Christianity aside from John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, C.S. Lewis’ children’s story has been given due treatment on the screen by Walden Media and Walt Disney Pictures. While the movie does not enter as deeply in to the Christian story as Lewis’ book does, the key elements and the visual representations of those elements are there. The CG elements of the film – and there are many – do a surprisingly good job of visually focusing one’s attention on important points and subtly cuing audience reception of the message. One of the most prominent examples of visual storytelling here is actually the knighting of Peter Pevensie by Aslan the lion, the rightful ruler of Narnia,  as the film builds to its climactic battle scenes.  It struck me in theatres and strikes me again every time I watch the film.  Here, Aslan is surrounded by a bright golden light, highlighting his colouring and the obvious weight of import that this scene holds.

One other scene to point out is the expertly-filmed self-sacrifice of Aslan at the Stone Table.  This scene succeeds as few others have in visually and aurally representing the cruelty of evil when faced with the humility of good.  The scene evokes, no matter what religious affiliation, a sense of evil exalting in the defeat of good.  We have been carried along a rising tide of emotional response to the film, and this scene succeeds in bringing its audience in to the film as few others do, allowing its audience to truly identify with the story being played out on the screen.

In The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, the performance of the children is everything.  For Director Andrew Adamson, it was important to show the audience the wonder of a child in finding a magic world in a wardrobe.  Lucy Pevensie was his vehicle for doing this, and the innocence and excitement of her first trip into Narnia is captured extremely well in the film by Georgie Henley.  Edmund, the traitor, is well-played by Skandar Keynes, but his performance is lacklustre in a few places.  William Moseley’s Peter is well-played as the reluctant leader transformed, and the logical, reasoning Susan is apparent in Anna Popplewell’s rather stiff performance.

The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, releasing on the heels of the Lord of the Rings trilogy as it did, capitalized on the resurgence of the fantasy epic genre but stands on its own as a lovingly translated form of Lewis’ singular story.  Watching it now in preparation for Prince Caspian, the magic and the meaning of the story is completely renewed for me.  I look forward to Prince Caspian with the eager expectation of Lucy, wanting the fantastic to again make a memorable appearance.

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Blessings;

Christ-bearer.

What’s Our Inspiration? – Nim’s Island

Welcome to the first of my biweekly movie reviews. I hope, as I’ve mentioned before, to take a Christian perspective on movies playing in the theater or from my own collection once every two weeks. After all, the way a culture chooses to represent itself speaks volumes about the spirituality of that culture. And movies are probably one of the most widely-distributed forms of representation in this culture at least. So, without further ado, Nim’s Island:

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The tagline for Nim’s Island, recently released in theatres, is “Be the hero of your own story.” In one way, that frightens me as a Christian. But the movie has a number of redemptive points that make it worth the watch, despite the celebration of the triumphant self that defines it.

Walden Media seems to be gearing itself towards the production of movies that work on a few levels. If you head over to their webpage, you’ll see that their mission is to make films that are both educational and entertaining, films that will recapture imagination and rekindle curiosity, as their tags suggest. It’s a good mission to have when you’re trying to position yourself as a major player in the market, and I’m going to comment on their success a little later on. So Nim’s Island is almost mandated to provide some food for thought in its presentation. This it does quite well, both from a secular and from a Christian perspective.

The movie tells the story of eleven-year-old Nim (Abigail Breslin), who lives with her father, a marine biologist named Jack Rusoe (Gerard Butler and we’ll say thankya Daniel Defoe for the name) in a little slice of South Pacific paradise, a remote island. They receive monthly supply orders from the mainland, and in those supply orders are often included novels about the great Alex Rover (also played by Butler), adventurer extraordinaire. Nim’s imagination takes her alongside Rover as he battles wild hordes on jungle islands, is captured by evil Arabs (no political commentary there, whatsoever) and faces (dum, dum, dum) certain death every time. But when her father is lost while out in a storm, Nim has no choice but to become the hero in her own story. What really kicks the message home is the parallel story of Alexandra Rover (Jodie Foster), the agoraphobic novelist who has created Alex Rover as an alter-ego through whom she may live vicariously. While doing research for her latest novel, Alexandra manages to get in contact with Nim and begins an adventure that will put to shame anything she’s written about Alex.

Foster brings a genuine charm to the screen in Alexandra Rover, and her return to humour is well-played. She has just the right sense of where things need to go to bring the laughs out, and takes us there every time. Gerard Butler brings a rugged Scots good-naturedness to Alex Rover, and the interplay between Foster and Butler in some scenes is priceless. Breslin’s Nim is every bit as innocent and joyous as she needs to be, whether she’s launching lizards from catapults to drive away marauding vacationers or huddling beside her sea lion friend in the midst of a storm. And it’s this innocence that we really need to pay attention to in order to see where we might find the imprint of Christ in this.

It says in Matthew 19:13-15

“Then children were brought to him [Jesus] that he might lay his hands on them and pray. the disciples rebuked the people, but Jesus said, “let the little children come to me and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven.” And he laid his hands on them and went away.

In Mark 10:13-16, this is added to:

“And they were bringing children to him that he might touch them, and the disciples rebuked them. But when Jesus saw it, he was indignant and said to them
, “let the children come to me; do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God. Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.” And he took them in his arms and blessed them, laying his hands on them.”

Spoiler alert!!!

In both places we’re directed towards the reality and the necessity of ‘faith like a child’ in the face of our hero Jesus Christ, and in Nim’s Island we find the same necessity of having faith like a child in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds. We need to be willing to suspend our disbelief at some of the events (Fred’s drum playing, for instance) in order to enter into the experience of the story we’re following. The same holds true in the Christian life.  The prayer ‘Lord, I believe; help my unbelief’ is every bit as necessary to the Christian in their day to day walk as ‘I’m the hero of my own story” is to Alex Rover when he’s sitting blindfolded on a camel being led away to the Pit of Spiders.  And in a few crucial scenes, it’s the innocence and optimism of childhood that wins out, that beats the odds and accepts the help of something far greater.  Look for intimations of the Lord “God [who] thunders wondrously with his voice; [who] does great things that we cannot comprehend” (Job 37:5) as the vacationers are driven away from the island in one of the film’s pivotal moments.  Cheer for Alexandra’s triumphant victory in grabbing the doorknob and opening the door to a grand adventure.  But remember in all of it to recognize that Alexandra begins to overcome her fears and go to Nim because she feels responsible for her, and because she’s a lonely and frightened little girl.  And that’s the same thing God did for us in Christ.

I’ll just close by mentioning a bit about Walden.  These are the guys that did The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe, the subject of my next review (preparation for Prince Caspian on May 15) and Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium.  They’re in a position to provide some quality entertainment to families and have prepared themselves to support their movies with class discussions and educational materials.  I say they’re someone to watch as the next generation of films takes shape.  Furthermore, that they’re someone to pay attention to for discussing how the Lord can function in filmed entertainment without being too ‘preachy’.  But that’s for the next time.