so i saw the lion, the witch, and the wardrobe last week, and i started to write about it, but i was having a hard time, and then i got sick, so i’ve been less inspired to finish for the last day or two. the difficulty arose, i think, because i really wasn’t writing about the movie so much. the main thing that inspired me to write was a funny feeling that i had while watching the movie, a feeling that went something like “you are not going to be able to criticize this film.”

i was struck by this feeling about 5 minutes in. they were shipping the kids off to live with the professor and the camera was hopping back and forth a lot among their trying-to-be-brave-for-mother faces. i was munching on popcorn and settling into my seat. one moment i was fiddling with my purse, and the next i was thinking: “they’re trying to get you to believe that those are the faces of the kings and queens of narnia. if you buy it, then you are looking at people you have known and loved your entire life.”
and the obvious corollary of this, at the time, was the feeling that i mentioned above. i realized that i had only love for these characters, and i was going to like watching the movie, and it really wasn’t going to matter whether the movie was bad. it was as if narnia was so deeply emblazoned on my psyche as a good and stirring thing that i was powerless to consider otherwise, no matter the evidence. it was as if my opinions on the matter were forever preserved at the 1st grade level, and no matter how much probing or explaining i might do, it would still just come down to liking them the way i like campbell’s tomato soup or kraft macaroni and cheese – it doesn’t really matter if i have otherwise become something of an epicure and shouldn’t really want to go near the stuff. it makes me feel good inside, and that’s all that i can say.

so that’s not all that hard to summarize, i guess, but the whole thing was pretty thought-provoking, and following the trails it suggested was a bit frustrating. in the process, i wrote something that amused me:
“these thoughts jostled a bit for my attention, and in the meantime, the movie continued. the kids were still catching the train. peter smiled. lucy cried. susan comforted. edmund scowled. i started to give in, and i was seized by a rush of memories – it kinda felt like that scene in the matrix when morpheus says “we’re going to need guns” and rack after rack whizzes in around them so fast that their clothes rustle in the wind.”
:)
and that was actually pretty accurate. it was somewhat disconcerting.

the play-by-play approach didn’t really hold up much beyond that, though.
i did have one more pinpointable moment:
“i realized that, beyond the doors of the cookie-cutter megaplex in which i was currently sitting, you could still see the ridge on the foothills that the 6ish-9ish year old me used to pretend was the passage to arkenland (next book, next movie – get your tickets early with fandango!).”
but then i just got lost in blathering, and that’s why i’m doing the digest version now instead.

the main questions that i found myself asking were these:

1. was i really right that i had this feeling because i was exposed to narnia at such a young age?
2. are there other stories that i would react to similarly, were they made into movies now after me not thinking about them for so long?
3. is it possible that the movie is just really good and i don’t want to admit that i liked it for fear of sounding like a cheeseball, and so i’m making all this “don’t ask me! i’m just a little kid! do you want me to sing you a song?” business up so that i can hide behind it?
4. does part of my reluctance to say much about the movie one way or another come from the fact that i heard a rumor that narnia is being pushed as a magic-without-those-pesky-satanic-wizards franchise, and that just pisses the hell out of me?

as for the first question, there’s not really any way to know for sure, but it sure does feel like it. part of what made the experience so remarkable was that i really did feel a resonating comfort at a really deep level, and it was, well, comforting. in a way that most of my media-related experiences are not (especially when they involve lions).

as for the second question, i read a lot when i was a kid, but when i thought about it, i realized that narnia was probably the first set of books that i read – my first exposure to a full-blown magical world of which each story only reveals a slice while hinting at a much larger whole. so it seems to make sense that it would hold a special place.
i’ve often thought that it will be interesting to see my reaction if they ever get around to making the movie of ender’s game, and when i thought some more i decided that i would probably have some token fondness for movies made about pern. but i still think that it will be easier, in those cases, to separate out my fondness for the story from my opinion of the film. the weird thing about this experience was that it all mushed up together.

and i think the third and fourth questions really go together. it gets tricky because i’ve since decided that i actually Can say that i like the movie.
to return to digest mode for a minute:
“it is worth saying that i can iMagine cases where my acceptance would have been clearly challenged. had narnia been rendered in hot pink with dancing giraffes, and all of the characters had been dressed in hospital gowns and made to speak with valley girl accents, i think it’s safe to say that i would have felt like something was a little wrong.”
and i really do feel a bit more strongly about it than that.
i saw harry potter again tonight, and they showed a preview for tLtW&tW. i was struck by some of the same emotions as i watched the preview, but i also realized that there really is a lot i can identify as worthy of admiration:
i think the casting is very well done. i think the rendering of narnia is thoughtful and in good taste. i think the arc of the story is well-preserved, and the potential christian metaphors were not overdone for the sake of… whatever.
faith, destiny, and martyrdom are not the province of any particular religion, and i didn’t feel any more like someone was trying to sneak medicine in with the sugar than i did when i was 6, when i didn’t even know that the debate existed.

and that’s a pretty good way to wrap up my reaction, really.
narnia, for me, is a place that will always be associated with a somewhat pure and childlike notion of goodness and magic. it doesn’t take much to trigger those associations, and i don’t respond well to the notion that they might be coopted for an agenda other than the continued delivery of goodness and magic to a new generation.
so far, i don’t feel like that’s a danger, but it annoys me that i even have to wonder, and i think the wondering does temper my reaction to this movie a bit, which makes me sad. if people start talking like i have to be down on narnia in order to be a hip liberal (and especially if they adapt the movies to match), let the record show that i will be even more tempted to declare myself a resident of progressive libertariana. i’ll make sure they have high-speed internet there, so i can blog about it, and i’ll fly a little flag that says: “long live narnia, aslan, tomato soup, and macaroni and cheese.”

i’m sure that people will flock there in droves.

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 29th, 2005 at 3:46 am and is filed under introspection, movies. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.