the post-narnia post

Yes, well, things from childhood always do look smaller when you return to them in adulthood.  Initially, I thought that Narnia was off to a good start with the blitz, the retreat to the country and the finding of the wardrobe.  But from there on, it disappointed, perhaps because it couldn't live up to my childhood memories, perhaps because the film paled besides LOTR and Peter Jackson's production values, perhaps because nothing equals the opening device of the wardrobe in the rest of the plot and no other characters are quite as charming as the camp Mr Tumnus who appears fairly early on.

I asked myself whether I would enjoy the film if I was a child these days (who hadn't read the book), and the answer is probably negative.  I do think we've all been rather spoiled by now with wonderful special effects and great production values so a book featuring talking animals and some hand-to-hand fighting makes something of a ho-hum film spectacle.

Watching Narnia, I couldn't help making comparisons with LOTR, both the book and the film.  LOTR has a far more developed cosmology and sense of 'world': Narnia is pretty thin in comparison.  I know this is probably overly analytical (and such questions never occured to me as a child) but why, for eg, are there talking beasts in Narnia? (I think we find this out in book 6).  And why are dryads, centaurs and satyrs also in this world (because CSL liked them?) and why are some types of mythical creatures good guys and others bad guys?  It all seemed pretty arbitrary to me, without much explanation, whereas there is a strong of history and social strata (and of course languages) in LOTR.  The special effects and sense of 'world' are also pretty well-fleshed in Peter Jackson's LOTR (one suspects he could have done a better job of Narnia on even a shoestring budget): I was really drawn in by the first film of the series (nearly jumped out of my skin a few times) tho I did get used to it all by films 2 & 3.

The plot in Narnia was depressingly slender, after the wardrobe bit.  I'd forgotten most of it, except the beginning and the end, but I kept on thinking, 'surely there was more to it than this?' Afterwards, at home, I flicked through the book (yes, the original from my parent's lounge room, which cost 65c): but alas, the plot looked depressingly slender, tho the Pauline Baynes illustrations were great. I felt the book would probably have fared better with a BBC blow-by-blow treatment to draw out more of the plot and subtext, and to develop more of the sense of 'world'. As for the Christian allegory (which Pullman rightly suggests is more Manichaean than Christian)...it was pretty obvious to me at the age of 6 what it was about, tho watching the film with the knowledge of CSL's take on myth, I could see some of the lines given to Aslan were meant to suggest that his was a sacrifice emblematic of all sacrifices in myth and hence the greatest sacrifice of all (a nuance lost on me 34 years ago, certainly).

As for characters -- one of the most depressing characterisations in the film has to be that of Lucy, who's really the protagonist (even if CSL does gender stereotype, he often has inquisitive, questing female protagonists and bad boys as foils, whom I suspect were based on himself as a snotty-nosed schoolboy).  Georgie whatever-her-name-is alternated between acting like a retard and a miniature middle-aged woman.  I suspect half her problem was that she was maybe a 9 yo instructed to act like a 6 yo, when it would have been better if she'd acted like a 9 yo (surely Lucy was about 9; it's implied that Susan and Peter are young teens). Both she and the boy playing Edmund seem to have been encouraged to mispronounce their 'r's at times, which along with all the other fond British tweeness invoked by the film, was intensely irritating. Susan and Edmund were reasonable renditions, Peter was rather wet in the big brotherly role, but perhaps he always was wet.

Tilda Swinton was of course good tho she might have been even better with a more challenging script (and how dare she continue to look so good!).  In the latter half of the film, I wondered tho whether she suddenly decided she would like to have a go at playing Boadicea.  Liam Neeson as the honey-toned voice of Aslan -- a little odd, maybe, but less annoying than the over-animated beavers (voiced by Ray Winstone and Dawn French respectively).  Tumnus (Matthew McEvoy) without a doubt gives the most winning performance of the film, as a kind of coy gayboy in furry rave pants and a scarf.

The sets at times seemed derivative of LOTR but not as good (cf. the White Witch's palace vs Sauron's, the galacial mountain scenes).  The best scene was probably the melting of the glacier or whatever it was.  There was a certain stagnant quality to a lot of the sets which was very disappointing (I suspect they filmed most of it in studios as opposed to on location somewhere like NZ).  I thought the trees in particular were terrible, especially in the opening scenes: the woods are meant to be alive, filled with tree spirits and spies but they all seemed pretty dead to me.

So overall, yes, I didn't find it particularly engrossing, and I did find myself fidgeting and looking around the cinema in the second half of the film.  In retrospect, the later, darker Narnian chronicles gripped me more than Wardrobe, like The Silver Chair and The Magician's Nephew (the latter having to be the pick of the bunch), tho I found The Last Battle depressing.  The Magician's Nephew, chronologically the first in the series tho written much later, might have been a more interesting starting point.

Thanks for the comments, people.  I often have no idea which posts are going to draw comment; I suspect the kids-lit subject matter appeals to the book farty-ness inherent in many bloggers.

Pavlov -- I have issues with HP, the main one being that the fantasy in it isn't as good as I remember it being in other fantasy books (i.e. I'm no longer a kid), and the secondary, related issue being that it all seems highly derivative and not as good as CSL, Susan Cooper, Ursula le Guin, etc.  But after watching Wardrobe last night, I must admit that many of Rowling's characterisations are quite witty (tho there are some v good Narnian characters, like Tumnus and Puddleglum) and that the plots can be darkly engrossing.  I struggled a bit with the adult Lewis poetic sf, tho I liked his rendering of the Cupid and Psyche myth, Till We Have Faces.

Jonathan -- It might interest you to know that I recently had a look back at George MacDonald's The Princess and the Goblin, with which I was also suitably entranced when I was about 8-10, because Cassandra Golds' latest kids fantasy book reminded me of it in tone and subject matter (to a degree).  But all the stuff about the grandmother in the attic etc had nowhere near the sway that it did for me then, and there were long, boring passages (about Curdie and his father) that I remember skimming as a child.  Nevertheless, I'd say it was probably a better book than Wardrobe, tho I could never get into any of that esoteric fantasist stuff he wrote, like Phantastes and Lilith.

Comments

[Pavlov's Cat]

Aha -- see, I've always thought that not only was JK Rowling being derivative on purpose, but that the derivativeness was actually (well, mainly) the point of it all. I just see her as using very, very contemporary habits of mind on very, very traditional material, as a superlatively good po-mo kids' writer, and the books as brilliant pastiche. (And not just of the school-story genre, but of stuff as recent as the Star Wars movies.)

[susoz]

I haven't read any of the HP books nor seen the films (did see one on a plane once, which hardly counts.) I think the reason I haven't is connected to your reaction to this Narnia film - it's all best left to children and childhood.

[susoz]

We (ie my son) have some of the Curdie and Princess stories on tape - a BBC radio production from the 1970s. I'd never heard of them before this. They srtrike me as fairly standard fairytales, not akin to something like the Narnia series.

[Tjilpi]

Thanks for the comments El. Now I've just noticed I've lost my bright yellow clock! I'm beginning to feel a touch of paranoia.

[elsewhere]

Twas only a kitchen clock, surely!

[Tjilpi]

Can you see the Bright Yellow Clock on my blog? It's above the banner "Australian Central Standard Time".

I've just discovered that Norton Internet Security/Antivirus blocks it being seen. I can see it at work but not at home. I recently did a Live Update of Norton's and am now encountering numerous bugs. The first was my email didn't work, and now my clock has gone.

My renewal subscription to Norton is almost due. I think they're trying to tell me something as every morning there is a reminder to renew.

[Angus]

Agree with much of this El, although I rather liked Peter in the film; he seemed pleasingly unsure of himself, whereas I've always hated the smugness and sanctimoniousness of his character in the books. Totally agree about Lucy, she was played far too young. The Professor was very disappointing too I thought (his advice to Peter and Susan comes across as pat and sentimental rather than wise; I suspect the overrated Jim Broadbent is part of the problem here).

Having said all that I enjoyed the film immensely; I think at heart I am still just a big Narnia freak and I'm incapable of not enjoying a film I've been waiting my whole life for. (The LOTR films on the other hand left me completely cold, and Tolkein's cosmology may be more fully developed by it's also STUPID.)

I do have to disagree about The Magician's Nephew; I actually think that's where the rot sets in; it tries to retrofit everything and answer too many questions and indeed for me it demonstrates the peril of fully realised cosmologies. I think I prefer ad hoc, jerry-built cosmologies myself. Best Narnia book is easily The Silver Chair.

[elsewhere]

Hmmm....it's a jumble sale, Narnia's just a jumble sale of mythology. That was the sickening truth I learned from the film.

The Silver Chair is good but depressing (that's when things get dark). I thought the Dawn Treader was the low point of the series, really.

Critters agreed with me about Narnia on RN, esp the portrayal of Lucy.

There is a kinder review of Narnia for the fans here: http://www.smh.com.au/news/film-reviews/the-chronicles-of-narnia-the-lion-the-witch-and-the-wardrobe/2005/12/23/1135032175976.html