Saturday, December 10, 2005

Always winter and never Christmas

The curse of the White Witch turns her enemies to stone and subdues the land of Narnia to the permanent chill of a winter which never reaches Christmas.
I went to see CS Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia at the City Screen in York last night. I loved the book and knew that the cinema version could never match it. The Disney treatment was pretty true to the original text and the characters were close to the ones that lived in my imagination.
As an aside , this is the first time I've been to City Screen since they installed a digital projector system. The picture quality was stunning. If I was disappointed with the film I could at least console myself with the technological miracle of the projected image.
I was not disappointed. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe lived in vivid Hollywood colour before my eyes. Aslan overcame the White Witch in a classic story of double dealing. The deeper magic brought justice to a corrupt power and summer warmed the land from the lamppost to Cair Paravel.
At times the Disney treatment was too sugary and by the end I was left with the feeling that the whole story belonged to another age. One into which I was born but no longer felt close to.
In some of the scenes where the children were in serious danger, they didn't look at all frightened. A little more horror on their faces would have helped the story along. But Tilda Swinton as the evil White Witch was convincing and the animation was superb.
Altogether a good night leaving a hope for the final triumph of good over evil.

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