Narnia and the "family film."

Meghan O'Rourke: "Judging the Narnia books solely by their Christianity is an impoverished way of reading them. It is a reflection more of our polarized moment... The real genius of Narnia is the way Lewis built, out of a hodgepodge of literary traditions and predecessors, a patchwork world of unconventional characters who understand and instruct children without seeking to domesticate or indoctrinate them. The result is indelible, and anything but strictly allegorical." Also in Slate: Liesl Schillinger goes off in pursuit of Turkish Delight.

Stuart Klawans in the Nation: "If the lukewarm were still being spewed out, this might have meant trouble for Narnia.... [but] since we live in a culture in which even religion is judged by its economic power, I expect the picture to be welcomed for its middlingness."

For AO Scott, writing in the New York Times, "the spirit of the book is very much intact." More (a lot more) from Phoebe Kate Foster at PopMatters.

Stephanie Zacharek at Salon: "Unselfconscious and subtly expressive, [Georgie] Henley [as Lucy] gives one of the most astonishing child performances I've seen in years - maybe since Drew Barrymore's in E.T.."

Jim Tudor at Twitch: "[S]low pacing, under-developed characters, and obvious special effects make this two hour and fifteen minute 'epic' feel much longer than even [Peter] Jackson's longest LOTR extended edition film."

At Cinematical, Martha Fischer rounds up more reviews and there's quite a conversation going on over at Jeffrey Overstreet's Look Closer Journal.

When the Guardian's Polly Toynbee lashed out at Lewis, the book and the movie on Monday, she "ruffled plenty of feathers," notes Andrew Dickson. As penance, she's asked to nominate her favorite children's films, and the readers follow up with their own.

Also, Peter Bradshaw on the "family film":

But what is more important is the sadness that the best family films can conjure up: real lump-in-the-throat sadness that more "adult" films are very chary about provoking. The great cartoons of Disney are irresistibly sweet, and yet their status as animation licenses some extraordinarily daring emotional moments such as, say, Dumbo being separated from his mother. This scene is almost unbearably sad, and targeted brutally at an audience who are more vulnerable than anyone.

[...]

The last five or six years have seen a wave of gasp-inducingly clever animations, and yet many wonder if their sophistication, their hyper-alert repudiation of naff, has not reduced some of the emotional impact. Maybe.

Xan Brooks then picks his top 50 family films of all time, from The Wizard of Oz (#1) to School of Rock (#50). Comments from Andrew Stanton, Nick Park and Peter Yates follow.

Posted by dwhudson at December 10, 2005 11:14 AM