"The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe" = A Very Good Film

The Chronicles of Narnia is the creation of Clive Staples (C.S.) Lewis. Lewis was a fervent Christian, returned to the fold through the intercession of his friend and fellow Oxford don J.R.R. Tolkien, of whom you may have heard. Emerging from the grey mist of agnosticism, Lewis became one of the leading authors of Christian apologia in the Twentieth Century. "Apology", in this context, is the explanation and defense of religious belief, not the saying of "I'm sorry." Most of his work was in this vein.

"The Chronicles of Narnia" was a seven book series set in the fantastic world Narnia. The first installment "The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe" is the subject of the film adaptation presently at hand. LWW starts out set very much in the real world we all know, it's 1940-1941, London, England. The Second World War is well under way and London is receiving regular nightly attention from the bomber forces of the Luftwaffe. The Pevensie children Lucy, Edmund, Peter, and Susan (Georgie Henley, Skandar Keynes, William Moseley, Anna Popplewell), as many urban children at the time, are evacuated into the countryside after an unpleasant near-miss on their house ending up in the gloomy old mansion of Professor Kirke. The Professor is invisible and the place is run by a tyrannical housekeeper, Mrs. MacReady (Elizabeth Hawthorne). Otherwise the Pevensie siblings are left to themselves.

Big, old, gloomy houses filled with no-touch art objects get dull fast, I guess, especially for kids. Eventually it comes down to hide-and-seek. During one such game little Lucy discovers an old wardrobe cabinet sitting ominously by itself in one of the rooms. Prefect hiding place...

This wardrobe is a big, ole' thing and it takes a child a few steps to reach the back where she encounters -- snow. The wardrobe is a gateway to the Narnia where the land is caught in the grip of a perpetual winter caused by Jadis, the evil White Witch. One of the hairy local residents, Mr. Tumnus fills Lucy in of the dismal details. When she returns to the mansion it takes a bit of convincing to convince the others that her experience was real, even brother Edmund who knows better... When the children return through the back of the wardrobe them find a land at a tipping point with the forces of Aslan the good lion poised against those of the Witch awaiting the arrival of a catalyst, the Sons of Adam and Daughters of Eve.

Narnia is a place filled with fantastic residents Satyrs, Fauns (like Mr. Tumnus) and families of talking Cockney beavers (all of the animals can talk there, it seems), etc. The land itself is dominated by Jadis from her frozen castle but Aslan is marshaling his forces at the borders. War is in the air and the Pevensie children are the key to victory one way or the other.

Lewis, like many who seek to instruct along with their stories, used a literary device called allegory to get his points across. Allegory is the use of characters and objects and their actions within a fictional story as symbols of the concepts the author wishes to illustrate. Lewis, being a renewed Christian, used his story to illustrate the story of Jesus Christ. LWW doesn't re-tell the New Testament per-se but rather illustrates and instructs various Christian tenets.

I tend to think of allegorical stories as a series of "equations", statements with with terms on both sides of an "equals" sign. In the case of LWW the root equation is: "Aslan = Christ". everything else is derived from this.

Lewis's friend J.R.R. Tolkien didn't care much for allegory, in fact he "cordially despised" it (even though he wrote one overtly allegorical (and self-flagellating) story himself). As I go on in life I tend to agree with Tolkien more and more. The Narnia books are up front allegory so Tolkien wasn't too hot on them either. It has been a long time since I have read the books so I come to this film almost fresh with just a skeletal outline memory of the story. I was aware back then that there was allegorical symbolism in the book, specifically the Aslan = Christ relation. As I've become able to recognise the presence of the allegorical over the years I've noticed a few things. First, almost every allegorical story has a Big Heavy Symbol. Something or possibly someone plopped down in the middle of things usually with the intention of making some Big Heavy Point. LWW is no exception here. At the beginning of Lucy's first sojourn in Narnia she encounters The Lamppost. The Lamppost is just that, a Victorian style gas streetlamp set down in the middle of a forest in an otherwise non-technological environment. If one isn't hip to the symbolism angle one goes "hungh?" and finally "humph..." with a shrug. If you're tuned in to the allegory you immediately start in with the symbol-sussing..."maybe it "=" the light of God's love... or something like that. This sort of guessing game continues throughout the story. If you're not hip you find yourself going "hungh?" and "humph..." a lot. I find this sort of thing distracting and rather pointless especially in a cinematic context. I'd rather just be entertained by a good story and let the uplifting message take care of itself, which it will.

Another thing which honked Tolkien about Narnia was Lewis's somewhat bizarre practice of mixing mythoses. In Narnia one will find a variety of Pagan creatures, Satyrs, etc fighting in the armies of God along with more traditional faerie tale denizens like the talking beavers. Tolkien found this a bit on the disconcerting side, as do I. I wonder if it would bother me as much if I weren't so sensitised to such things by all of the "symbol-math".

Visually LWW is nothing less than stunning. The CG optical effects work, done by Peter Jackson's Weta outfit, are first rate. A special stand-out is the totally digital Aslan. The other production work is also peerless. (Except for the snow, at times. Why is it that movie snow always looks so cheesy?) SFX junkies will have lots of eye candy to admire while they're going "hungh?" and "humph..."

The cast is similarly good, even when dealing with Lewis's sometimes difficult content. Tilda Swinton (who's IMDB bio informs us is frequently mistaken for a man in airports...) is delightfully creepy and ethereal as Jadis, the White Witch (why Lewis decided to make his Satan figure a woman (with an Islamic name) is a matter perhaps best left to Dr. Freud's disciples). The young actors playing the Pevensies are quite good especially considering all of the complicated process work involved in the shoot. (Georgie Henley is pareticularly good.) Frequently this had the cast relating to a ball on a stick held by a grip which would be replaced with Aslan or some other fantastical creature. Mr. and Mrs. Beaver (voiced a. la Cockney by Ray Winstone and Dawn French are also a hoot. They could have just as easily have ended up cutsie-poo annoying. Also look for Kiran Shah, Elijah Wood's stunt double in the LOTR movies, as Jadis's evil dwarf servant ("Dr. Freud, paging Dr. Freud!") and listen for Liam Neeson as Aslan's voice.

The DVD version I have is the mass-market edition which is pretty weak in the extras department. Some not-real funny bloopers and a commentary track. If you want details, I believe there is a two disc set with all your extras. One surprisingly useful extra is a "Subtitles-for-kids" functionality. This flashes little fact-lets on the screen from time to time and can serve as a painless way for kids and adults alike to learn about Narina and Lewis, if they're so inclined.

Despite my carping about all of the allegory I can't say at all we're dealing with a bad story here or even one with great flaws. Lewis, and director Andrew Adamson use a light touch to execute the story as opposed to the dull sledgehammer approach one usually finds in Important Works of Modern Literature. Even if one has one's mental co-processor distracting one with all of the allegorical math the script still contains moments of power and beauty. And despite all the above-reference carping most viewers and their kids will find LWW a worthwhile cinematic experience. Just don't tell the kids about the "equals signs", OK?