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A New Zealander, directing in New Zealand, a much-loved fantasy classic written by a British professor, published in the 1950s. This is where the similarities between Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings and Andrew Adamson's The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe end. Although it is tempting to compare them, C.S. Lewis's Narnia series and J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings are so different in scope and intention that such efforts are futile. Indeed, even though Lewis and Tolkien were close friends, Tolkien hated The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe as well as the subsequent six Narnia books.
Andrew Adamson, who found fame with directing Shrek, nevertheless had high expectations to fulfill, as Disney and Narnia fans alike were waiting with baited breath to see if he would deliver the goods. His version of the classic tale has been preceded by a 1970s' cartoon version (which introduced me to Narnia as a child) and a 1980s' BBC version. Bringing Narnia to the big screen with a multi-million dollar Hollywood budget in the wake of The Lord of the Rings and the Harry Potter series seemed destined for glory.
Adamson's version opens with a nighttime Nazi bombing of London: an effective touch as it brings home the parallelism at play between the battle to rid Europe of Nazism and the battle fought to rid Narnia of the tyranny of the White Witch. Four children — Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy — are evacuated along with hundreds of other London children to the safety of the English countryside. The four siblings are sent to the house of an old professor where they stumble upon a wardrobe that transports them to the land of Narnia. Narnia is in the grip of Jardis, the White Witch, and it is always winter there and never Christmas — that is until Aslan the great lion will return and the two sons of Adam and two daughters of Eve will sit on the four thrones at Cair Paravel castle. When this happens, so goes the prophecy, it will be the end not only of the White Witch's reign but also of her life. Jardis, therefore, does everything in her power to prevent this from happening.
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| Tilda Swinton and Skandar Keynes in The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe |
The director, who also cowrote the screenplay, manages to bring all this to life with a mixture of awe and adventure. What could have been a major disappointment — child performances — turns out to be a plus. The director elicits wonderful, believable performances from the four young actors. Ironically, Tilda Swinton's performance as the White Witch is a bit disappointing. She has her moments (especially the ghoulish sacrifice of Aslan), but her performance is too understated and does not come across as sufficiently menacing to represent the evil that everyone is fighting against. Liam Neeson succeeds in conveying what Lewis calls Aslan's "rich and deep" voice, giving the lion an air of majesty. The voices of Ray Winstone and Dawn French as the stalwart working-class Mr. and Mrs. Beaver are simply a joy.
The computer-generated images used to recreate the beavers, Aslan the great lion, wolves, centaurs, and other weird and wonderful creatures are simply jaw-dropping. Unlike the new Star Wars films where the special effects did not add anything to the film and were simply annoying, the effects here blend in seamlessly with the narrative and the human actors rather than being used to cover up gaping holes in the script and the performances. The climactic battle between the good and evil of Narnia is particularly rousing, with Peter's role as general mirroring that of his father fighting in Nazi-occupied Europe.
Of course, as with any adaptation of a much-loved novel, purists will have their criticisms. The films leaves out seemingly small details — such as Edmund's constant obsession with Turkish Delight after his initial meeting with the White Witch, and how the other children find out that Edmund had lied about his first visit to Narnia — which affect the power of the story and characters. A Hollywood-added action sequence in which the children emerge from near drowning in an ice-cold river as if emerging from a lovely hot bath also undermines the persuasive power of the film. This is not a page-by-page adaptation, and perhaps realistically it could never be.
Much of the controversy generated before the film's release concerning its potential overt Christian propaganda turned out to be hot, empty gassing. Lewis intended the series as a Christian allegory, with Aslan representing Christ. Why is this regarded as "religious propaganda" whereas Phillip Pullman's children's fantasy "His Dark Materials" trilogy is not regarded as "secular propaganda"? Neither is propaganda except in the perception of the religious or secular fundamentalist. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe brought me much comfort and joy as a Muslim child growing up in Wales. Where are the classic Muslim children's stories, whether allegorical or otherwise? It is true that Lewis' prejudice against Islam does come across in some of the Narnia books. I don't know how Adamson, if he will still be in the directorial chair, will bring The Horse and His Boy (number three in the Narnia series) to the screen when the villains in the story are described as "men with long, dirty robes, and wooden shoes turned up at the toe, and turbans on their heads, and beards [and dark skin]." Perhaps the writers will cross that bridge when they come to it, as number four in the series, Prince Caspian, in which Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy return to a very different Narnia, is scheduled to be filmed next.
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