THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA: THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE (2005) *** A great artist can do anything he wants, but that's only after saying that specific art forms naturally favour some element of existence. Music lends itself to the emotions of love, writing to the emotions that spin out of the thought process, and painting to the beauties and horrors born of vision. For some reason, film is the most natural landscape for depicting the heroism, and magnificence and grandeur, of war. Visual elements swirl into psychological, lending an abbreviated emotion that begins and belongs to the gut. Andrew Adamson does an incredible job with the battle scene (spiced with cheetahs and giants), and Tilda Swinton's witch is genuinely intimidating in ways to make any warrior laugh at himself, self-consciously. C. S. Lewis' story spends most of its time as a pleasant children's fantasy, then abruptly changes gears into an esoteric commentary on the crucifixion of Christ. I'm not entirely sure what he's saying beyond that the Lamb of God is also the Lion, but the congregation of familiar symbols and elements is sympathetic and profound on at least the reflexive canvass that greeted the depictions of mortal combat. Good vs. evil, you want to be a draft dodger in that one?
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