Last night, my husband and I went out to see Prince Caspian, the latest movie version of the Chronicles of Narnia. As the movie ended and the screechy wail of a song started over the closing credits, the audience began clapping, and I with them. I shook myself out of the spell that held me enthralled for 2 hours and 20 minutes and turned to Mark, who said, "BORING!""What?"
"That was so boring. But this song is good. I think it's my favorite part of the movie."
"Ugh! This song is making my skin crawl. It's that warbly, high pitched style that gets on my nerves. You really didn't like it? I thought it was the best movie we've seen so far."
"Really? I couldn't get into it. I could have walked out."
"Wow. I was totally entranced."
So, the movie got, um, mixed reviews, to say the least.
We determined that the problems stemmed, at least in part, from our relationship with the original books by C.S. Lewis. I was entranced with the books as a child, and as with Peter Pan and The Lord of the Rings trilogy, they formed the fabric of a fantasy world into which I escaped. In all three average people (children or those childlike in innocence) find magic and adventure; I used to dream of Pan knocking on my window or my closet suddenly opening on a wintry wood in another world or a wizard calling on me to become something extraordinary. If the Harry Potter books had been around then, no doubt I would have added waiting for an owl and an invitation to Hogwarts.
I reread The Chronicles of Narnia a few years ago, aloud to Mark. And the books were significantly less magical as an adult. I was shocked to find them downright offensive at times, in their underlying racism and particular Biblical interpretations: things that all went completely over my head as a child. Mark enjoyed The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, but by the end of the series was left with a bad feeling about the books in general.
The movie made several changes to the plot of Prince Caspian, which tightened it and made it much more exciting and compelling than the book for me. It also toned down (but didn't entirely eliminate) some of the Aryan superiority elements. (Am I the only one bothered by how the fantasy bad guys -- the Haradrim, the Telmarines -- are described as "dark skinned" and subscribe to some religious beliefs that seem to be taking digs at non-Christians?)
The movie was able to suck me in to that imaginary world of my childhood, rebuilt in even more vivid splendor than my imagination painted, with a plot that moved along briskly (especially compared to the book, which spends a significant amount of time following the Pevensie children as they search for food and trek lost through the woods). And I remembered little enough of the book (in spite of having read it only a few years ago) to remain in a state of uneasy suspense. I also appreciated the Shakespearean overtones the movie brought out: from Macbeth's defeat by the wood moving against him to Hamlet's quest for vengeance against his uncle.
Mark, meanwhile, was cringing, emotionally divorced from the characters, waiting for Aslan to show up and spew a moral message. Oh well. That's what I get for sharing the books.
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