Posted on 12/12/2005 5:59:32 PM PST by TFFKAMM
Children won't get the Christian subtext, but unbelievers should keep a sickbag handy during Disney's new epic, writes Polly Toynbee
Monday December 5, 2005
The Guardian
Aslan the lion shakes his mighty mane and roars out across Narnia and eternity. Christ is risen! However, not many British children these days will get the message. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe opens this week to take up the mantle left by The Lord of the Rings. CS Lewis's seven children's books, The Chronicles of Narnia, will be with us now and for many Christmases to come. Only Harry Potter has outsold these well-loved books' 85 million copies.
How suitable that one fantasy saga should follow on from the other, despite the immense difference between the writings and magic worlds of these two old Oxford dons. It was JRR Tolkien who converted CS Lewis to Christianity during one long all-night walk that ended in dawn and revelation. Narnia is a strange blend of magic, myth and Christianity, some of it brilliantly fantastical and richly imaginative, some (the clunking allegory) toe-curlingly, cringingly awful.
This new Disney film is a remarkably faithful rendition of the book - faithful in both senses. It is beautiful to look at and wonderfully acted. The four English children and their world are all authentically CS Lewis olde England. But from its opening scenes of the bombing of their Finchley home in the blitz and the tear-jerking evacuation from their mother in a (spotlessly clean) steam train, there is an emotional undertow to this film that tugs on the heart-strings from the first frames. By the end, it feels profoundly manipulative, as Disney usually does...
(Excerpt) Read more at guardian.co.uk ...
How about 'the Guardian represents everything that is most hateful about socialism'?
I guess they would have preferred that Peter and Aslan make a gay couple.
I guess she's getting an early start on her wailing and gnashing of teeth.
I wonder, if you took a religious story and turned it into a homosexual story (by changing the gender of a single character), would the critics love it or hate it?
She sounds like a demon wailing against the sight of a crucifix.
I always enjoy it when movies are attacked on ideological grounds. It's refreshing that there ARE movies that can be attacked on ideological grounds.
This limey witch should go to............!
Typical leftwing, secular, response.
I think this is more true than we can understand!
Evil *is* afoot in this world.
"Of all the elements of Christianity, the most repugnant is the notion of the Christ who took our sins upon himself and sacrificed his body in agony to save our souls. Did we ask him to?"
What a vile person she is. Does she take this approach to every martyr?
Is there anything about socialism that's not hateful? It's hateful to people's individualism, liberty, freedom, and property, to name just a few.
How sad that she seems so proud of her lack of religion and her belief that her country lacks a religious base. It must be awful to be that hatefully and utterly empty.
Polly want a brain in her head?
"Of all the elements of Christianity, the most repugnant is the notion of the Christ who took our sins upon himself and sacrificed his body in agony to save our souls. Did we ask him to?"
I pity the poor soul who said this.
And Happy Hanukah to you! May you share richly in the blessings of this season dedicated to honoring our common G-d.
Well said!
She needs Christ in her life. What a miserable, sad person.
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