(My review - with spoilers - is added in this post's update, below.)
I woke up to snow, and more snow...
And when it stopped, my world looked like something that should be on a movie screen. Something like Narnia...
I saw "Narnia" today - and I get to go and see it again tomorrow. It's wonderful. Exciting (even when you know what's going to happen). Moving. And I heard echoes of my own voice, reading aloud to the children, in lines like "Once a king in Narnia, always a king in Narnia," "Here is your brother, and there is no need to talk to him about what is past," "Not like a
tame lion."
"Narnia" is about so much, and it's well told. But the strongest theme is the greatest theme of all, the theme of redemption.
Aslan. He's on the move...
(Be sure to stay in your seat til the credits are done, and get a peak at the future.)UPDATE: Here is my review of Narnia, after seeing it twice. It does contain many "spoilers."
I've gotten to see Chronicles of Narnia two times in two days. Yesterday (Friday) it was with a smallish crowd on a very snowy day, and we sat near homeschool friends. Tonight, it was in a pretty full (and huge) theater, and we were together with 30 of our church friends and youth group kids.
I am very happy about this movie.
I've read many comparisons between the movie and the book - which I find interesting. To me, the two mediums are so different. When I read a book (which I do far, far more often), I pause and linger over a phrase, a description, a deep truth. I choose my own pace. A movie just goes - and pulls you in to its interpretation, its flow. Neither can do the other's job, they can each just tell a story in different ways, like Gospel writers giving their unique perspective.
So as I watched Narnia, I knew the story already. I knew what would happen - or what I hoped would happen. And frequently in the movie, I found there was a subtext running through my mind: of C.S.Lewis' constant comment (for the benefit of worried parents, no doubt) that "it is very foolish to shut oneself into any wardrobe," of Mrs. Beaver wanting to bring along her sewing machine, of the stone lions, of the help of Giant Rumblebuffin. No, those things were not in the movie - but they were in my mind, in the way my own imagination added them to the film.
And the movie added its own elements - like a dramatic sequence of London air raids, and the way the Pevensie children were sent into the country because of them. When Lewis wrote "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe," it was just five years after the end of World War II, and ten years after the blitz, the period of intense bombing of London. It was fresh in readers' minds - but very far away from today's young audience. I was also drawn to the mother of the Pevensies in those scenes - I found something about her that (had this been a book, and not a movie) would have made me pause in my reading to think more about her, and a motherhood that sacrifices so much to be sure children have a literal future.
Another added element was the crossing of the icy river (though the river itself is described at length in the book). I was spellbound by it, because although I've never witnessed it myself, I've been told for years of what it's like when Lake Ontario freezes in front of our cottage, and the force of the breakup of the ice in the spring. I felt so cold watching the children crash and speed through the current - and thought Lewis would have liked that part, and (had it been in the book) would have added some line about it being "very foolish to walk out on breaking ice."
I loved so many of the characters. I loved the Beavers - they were charming and cozy, and more fleshed out than the book, where they were used as more of a device to explain the history of Narnia. In the movie, they showed a kind of small courage that made me think of Reepicheep (and look forward to that brave little character in a future movie). Mr. Tumnus fell to temptation and then showed remorse and love - in an early display of the kind of redemptive qualities the story tells. The Professor looked a little more wild-haired and wizardly than I envisioned (maybe a nod to a future episode), but his words and expressions were just as I thought they'd be. The White Witch had a scary control of emotions, able to use them at will, and still be as chilling as the winter she represented. I couldn't take my eyes off of her - maybe because I read somewhere that the actress didn't want her own children to view the movie, and see their mother showing such coldness. And although all the animal characters were well done, the centaurs struck me particularly as being so noble. It was visually jarring but fascinating to see a man's head so far forward on a horse, as the centaur man is a part of the horse itself.
Peter first shows some reluctance, but then is the first to accept the challenge of the battle itself, telling his siblings to return through the wardrobe without him. Susan is so practical, she is almost beyond an understanding of Narnia - another nod to the future development of the book series. Edmund is fuller, perhaps, than in the book - or in my memory of the book, and his face shows such a range of emotion throughout the film, reminding me (in later scenes) of the way one who is forgiven much, loves much. And Lucy - Lucy leads them all (as well as the viewers) with her captivating, child-like faith.
And then there's Aslan. This Aslan was truly a real lion, a believable lion, and one whose movie roar echoed in the imagination (and the theater) much more powerfully than Lewis' "Wow!" The first time I watched the film, I was looking to see how they would do Aslan's death; the second time, I just watched and felt myself wince with each brutal thud as they dragged him up the steps of the Stone Table. And his mane was so full and realistic, I could almost feel what the girls felt as they held on during Aslan's Gethsemane moment, or as they grasped it after his resurrection.
There was something else the movie added. I've heard commentators say it's just a fantasy tale, that there is no unique Christian symbolism meant in it other than what Christians themselves project into it, or that Disney was not interested in any of that. But twice now I've sat stunned to hear Aslan say "It is finished." It couldn't get much clearer.
As a book, Lewis' "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe" is a classic, with language that lingers in the mind and heart, from childhood to adulthood. As a movie, "Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" has vistas and castles and intimate dams and grand battles that are a feast for the eye and ear. And it is as a
story that Narnia speaks loudest and fullest - a story of redemption, which is the beginning of real adventures, and real living. How exciting that there is more to come.
