Saturday, December 10, 2005

It rocked!

Narnia i.e.

A visual feast! The characters were great -- little Lucy was simply adorable! The battle scene was ok; however, I feel that all this large-scale CG-armies-clashing-against-beautiful-scenic backdrop thing is really getting old after LOTR. The story was ... well, fantastic. It's been years since I've read the books, so I really cannot compare. I loved the way the Witch lures Edmund with Turkish Delight - her coldness is wonderfully done. Sin is always so alluring! "A goodly apple rotten at the core" as the Bard put it.

The only thing that seemed lacking was a framework -- and I only thought about this because of the CT review (below) that said that there was no mention of the Emperor-beyond-the-sea, (God the Father in the allergory), which makes the whole movie kinda float a little aimlessly.

The most powerful point in the evening, however, was only incidental to the movie. At one point, I think it was just before Aslan's sacrifice, I was just overwhelmed by this desire to see Christ, to be with him. It's really hard to explain. This desire for all the pain and suffering in the world to be over, for the new Jerusalem to fully be present. But really, this deep desire to just be with Jesus. I've had deep religious experiences in the past (those who know my conversion story have heard this). I don't know if I'd put this in the same category. But I do know that I'd never really felt this kind of desire -- the desire to just see the Lord, to bask in His presence -- before.

Was it the movie that "caused" this? Well, of course not, not directly. It's grace for sure. And, like all grace, makes one want to go, plain and simple, "Hallulujah"

[Oh, I have to get in a little rant: we went to the new shopping mall blob thing out in the Northeast. The Sandhills, off Clemson Rd. 8 months ago, it was woods. Can I just say that I absolutely loathe such places? So artificial! So prefab! So neat and clean and suburbia! [Shudder] This one looks and feels just like the South Park Mall in Charlotte. Retch!]

[Oh -- Amy's got her thoughts up: All Hyped Out. Money quote:
It took a couple of hours for my thoughts to form on this...as Katie and I followed up on a thoroughly lazy day by watching Mad Hot Ballroom...but I think I decided that I am weary of the dynamic of this new Christian market - what Barbara Nicolosi calls the Passion Dollars. I am tired of the film producers and distributors using (some) Christian churches and organizations to market their films and tired of (some) Christians clinging on to these cultural products in the hopes that they will evangelize. It all comes out seeming rather sad in the end. It is this web of mystery we are caught in. Art is a fundamental part of life, and people see glimpses of the transcendent through it, which has the power to open their hearts to God.

But in the crush of the marketplace, where everyone is exploiting everyone else, authenticity gets drained, even just a little bit, out of the moment. The key in LWW, of course, is Aslan's sacrifice. The way it all occurs in this film, less-than-deeply rooted in any sense of broader, deeper purpose, it comes across as clearly a Christ moment, but almost here as a trick, as a convenient, easy-to-grasp symbolic action that might certainly remind some, if not most, of the Passion, death and resurrection of Jesus, but doesn't spark much of any sense of the role of this sacrifice - the scapelion's resurrection ends up being more of a "Here he comes to save the day" moment than a moment of restoration.]

1 comment:

Unknown said...

The kids and I are going tomorrow. We can't wait.