Kids and witch steal Aslan's thunder in Narnia
By Peter T. Chattaway
THE LION, the Witch and the Wardrobe is about four children who discover a magical country while staying in a professor's house, far from their home, during World War II. They enter this country, called Narnia, through a secret portal in the back of a giant closet. Once they get there, they discover that their arrival is the fulfillment of an old prophecy.
Narnia, the Pevensie children learn, has been shrouded in snow and ice for a full century; it is a land where it is always winter but never Christmas, thanks to an evil would-be queen called the White Witch. But it is prophesied that, one day, two boys and two girls will come to Narnia and take their place as the rightful kings and queens of that land.
Do the children ever raise any objections to this news? Does one of them ever stop to say, "Hold on a minute, what if we don't want to fulfill somebody else's prophecy?"
Not in C.S. Lewis' original story, and not in most of the plays, cartoons, TV shows and radio dramas that have been based on it. In fairy tales, it is generally assumed that children want to be kings or queens. The question faced by characters and readers is not whether they will want to achieve their destiny, but how they will go about achieving it.
Alas, fairy tales are not what they once were, and the newest dramatization of Lewis' story - the first of The Chronicles of Narnia to be produced for the big screen - reflects the ambivalence of our age. It also reflects the perceived need for 'realism' in film, a 'realism' that is more about emphasizing human flaws and epic battles than about recognizing true strength of character.
In this version, directed by Andrew Adamson (Shrek, Shrek 2) from a script credited to him and three other writers, the children - Peter (William Moseley), Susan (Anna Popplewell), Edmund (Skandar Keynes) and Lucy (Georgie Henley) - often discuss their desire to return home to England.
When Edmund is captured by the White Witch (Tilda Swinton), Peter insists he doesn't care about the prophecy, he just wants to get his brother back.
The film underscores this connection to their home by beginning with a sequence depicting the air raids over London at the start of the war; in fact, the film basically begins inside a German bomber cockpit.
As the Pevensies are herded into a shelter by their mother, Edmund runs back into the house for a photo of their father, who is away with the army. Peter chastises him: "You're so selfish! . . . Why can't you just do as you're told?"
In this and other ways, the new film generates some sympathy for Edmund, and makes his eventual betrayal of his siblings seem less sinister, or less deliberate. It also makes such a big deal of Peter's reluctance to lead the Narnians that it is not quite convincing when he and his siblings finally do take up arms against the Witch's massive army.
In addition, the film gives the Witch more stature while dialing back the stature of Narnia's Christ-figure Aslan (a magnificent CGI lion voiced by Liam Neeson), who loses some of his warmth and ironic humour, especially when the Witch boldly approaches his camp and demands Edmund's life. Here, it is Aslan, not the Witch, who loses his temper.
The Pevensies, too, steal some of Aslan's thunder. In the book, Father Christmas declares, "Aslan is on the move. The Witch's magic is weakening." But in the film, he tells the children, "The hope brought by Your Majesties is starting to weaken the Witch's power." And while Mr. Beaver (Ray Winstone) quotes the poem prophesying the enthronement of the children, he never quotes the equivalent poem predicting Aslan's return.
Christian fans may also be disappointed that the film makes no reference to Aslan's father, the Emperor-Beyond-the-Sea, or to the Deeper Magic that existed before the dawn of time. And when the Professor (Jim Broadbent) talks of logic, he does it only to mock how the word is used by Susan, who is presented here as someone who thinks too much.
Some scenes do work very well. Henley is absolutely adorable as Lucy, and the scenes in which she befriends the faun Mr Tumnus (James McAvoy) are simply enchanting. And Swinton is the first actress in any filmed adaptation I've seen to understand that the White Witch's evil must, at times, be subtle, crafty and seductive.
The film's special-effects team also does a fine job of bringing Lewis' imagination to vivid life, though the results are a little iffy in places. Aslan's sacrifice is, appropriately, a dark and foreboding nightmare. The battle scenes, however, come across like a pale imitation of the equivalent scenes from Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy.
Lewis once said the important thing about a myth is not how it is told, but the "pattern of events" it communicates; after that, he wrote, "you can throw the means of communication away." By that standard, Adamson's film is a success; it covers all the basic plot points - including, yes, Aslan's death and resurrection. But the nuances surrounding these events have been changed a fair bit, and the script loses much of the flavour of Lewis' books.
This could have been a fantasy film for the ages; but, as it is, once you have beheld the pattern of events, you may find that the film itself is not so hard to throw away.
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Hoodwinked, a wacky animated riff on the Little Red Riding Hood story opening January 13, features the voices of several family-movie veterans, including Anne Hathaway (The Princess Diaries), Patrick Warburton (The Emperor's New Groove) and David Ogden Stiers (Lilo & Stitch). It also happens to be the work of several committed Christians.
The film was primarily written and directed by Cory Edwards, a Christian stand-up comedian who once hosted the radio show Reasons to Believe with Hugh Ross. Edwards' brother Todd is listed as a co-director on the film, and so is Tony Leech, who co-starred in the Petra Beyond Belief video in 1990 and wrote a TV show for Carman a few years later.
In addition, the score and a few of the songs were written by John Mark Painter and Fleming K. McWilliams, of the husband-wife pop band Fleming & John. And the character of Japeth - a goat who, thanks to a spell cast by a mountain witch, always sings when he means to speak - is performed by Benjamin Gaither, son of gospel artists Bill and Gloria.
In an email, Edwards told me that giving Christian artists exposure in mainstream movies was his "undercover mission." Film soundtracks, he wrote, "are usually made up of bands the listener might not be familiar with, so soundtrack albums are a perfect way to introduce secular audiences to these artists. I hope to find more ways to do that with my future projects."
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