Prince Caspian: A Review

I suppose that the Narnia film series, however long it winds up being, will always be saddled with its associations with Lord of the Rings. The source material comes from two close friends who in their own way were both significant Christian writers in the mid-20th century. The two book series are both still much loved and have found wider audiences than their religious roots. The impetus for the Narnia series was certainly driven in part by the breathtaking success of LOTR, and even the film location in New Zealand and the use of Peter Jackson’s WETA Workshop as the special effects house for Narnia create associations that the series will probably never shake.

With all that in mind, it is extremely difficult for me to watch Narnia without thinking of LOTR, and unfortunately, Prince Caspian isn’t helping that cause. The opening moments of the film have us rejoin the 4 Pevensie children a year after the events of LWW (apologies for all the acronyms, I feel like I’m navigating government bureaucracies!). This is post-war London, and so life seems to be beginning again, but all of them, Peter especially, seem restless to head back to Narnia. They get their wish as their whisked away, but as they explore their adopted homeland, they realize that this is not the same land they left. Indeed, 1300 years have passed since they returned to the wardrobe. Narnia has long been conquered by an invading people, the Telmarines. They are involved in their royal fight, as Prince Caspian, the heir apparent to the throne, finds himself hunted by his uncle, who tolerated his existence until the birth of his son. Fleeing from this power grab, Caspian stumbles upon Narnians, and eventually meets the Pevensies, who were summoned by his blowing of Susan’s horn.

The movie makes significant departures from the book, perhaps the largest being an additional battle inserted into the middle. Peter and Caspian seem to compete for authority, but join together in an effort to take down Caspian’s uncle. The battle fails, and many Narnians fall. While this move seems to frustrate a number of fans, it’s these kinds of scenes, the large scale CGI battles, that play to the director Adamson’s strengths, as well as to his seeming interests. These battles are fun summer spectacles, and this one is no different. To his credit, Adamson does find a way to make the Caspian battles look and feel different from each other and from LWW. Some will say that he is expanding the vision of what a PG-rated action movie can be. I’d argue that he gets his rating because it’s a Disney movie more than because he’s earned it.

The actors who play the four kids have grown well, and while their acting was mainly serviceable in the first film, they actually become a strength this time around. That being said, Adamson often gives them little to work with, and his choices in how he is developing these characters is somewhat suspect. Arguably, these kids have a lifetime of experience in Narnia where they had time to become masters as swordsmen and bowmen, but they are still kids, and having these kids play the role of fighting heroes often comes across a bit awkward.

As I said, the LOTR parallels abound, and it is in these two areas, the battle sequences and the place of the heroes, that Caspian suffers from these parallels. Moments in these battles seemed ripped straight from Jackson’s storyboards (there’s Minas Tirith, and there’s Helms Deep, etc.). While homage and quotation are certainly appropriate in film, here it seems to stem from a lack of creativity. Similarly, when Susan becomes the expert archer, it looks like a lesser version of Legolas, and she simply can’t hold up to that kind of comparison. Taken together, my concern is that the creative team is inviting the comparison between the two franchises, and they will almost always come up short in the comparison.

My largest criticism, though, is in the weakening role of Aslan. In terms of the larger series, he is obviously the key figure, and his role in the lives of the children and the Narnians, even when he is off-screen, is key. Here, he has taken a backseat, and while his appearance doesn’t obliterate his message from the source material, it is muted. Some of the more interesting themes, including the loss of faith over time and the recovery of faith in the midst of hardship, only get scant mention here.

While I enjoyed the film, I find myself hesitant when I think of what it might have been. In a sense, this film is the price of success. To land the big budget for this series, they have to make sure they can fill the seats. To fill the seats, in typical Hollywood creativity they try to make the thing look like something else that filled the seats. The price for this is the particular unique voice that Lewis’ books offer to young children and to the many adults that love the series. There is a warmth to these books that seems lost in the spectacle of these movies. So while Caspian remains enjoyable summer fare at the movies, the series is unfortunately positioning itself as the weaker cousin of a better franchise.

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly: A Review

Jean-Dominique Bauby would have been the envy of many. In his early 40’s, he was the chief editor of the fashion magazine Elle, living the high life in Paris. His kids lived with their mother in the country, and he embodied the “fast cars and fast women” lifestyle in the city with a vengeance. The world was indeed his oyster.

Then came December 8, 1995. At the age of 42, he experienced a massive stroke that left him completely paralyzed, what the professionals call “locked-in syndrome. “ Left only with the use of his eyes, he was quickly further restricted when his right eye had to be sewn shut. Now, he was confined to a hospital bed, dependent on full-time care for his every need, with the use of only one eye. All of this, while his mind was completely intact.

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly begins as Bauby opens his eyes for the first time, waking up from a 3-week coma. He learns what happens to him, and we learn of the great dissonance as we hear his thoughts but realize he cannot communicate them. Literally trapped by his body, his therapist comes to his rescue as she teaches him how to communicate through blinking. It is a slow cumbersome process, but is the only way he is able to communicate.

Before his accident, Bauby had negotiated a book contract. As he learns his communication style, his therapist contacts his publisher and announces the surprise that he intends to keep his contract. Over the course of the next 18 months, he works with an assistant to write his book. As he puts it, “I decided to stop pitying myself. Other than my eye, two things aren't paralyzed, my imagination and my memory.”

The history of this story is profound enough that it would seem the film could add very little. But the great success of this as a film is the way it invites us to experience Bauby’s world, the thought life that was his means of keeping his sanity in the midst of this extraordinary challenge. The director makes wise us of his camera, spending the bulk of the film looking at the world through Bauby’s eyes. We are invited to experience his entrapment. Through this great struggle the former playboy has to wrestle with the meaning of his existence, his misplaced values, and the sense of regret over the ways in which he failed in life. At one point, he reflects that his life has been a series of missed opportunities, and only now in this trapped existence can he see how he might have lived.

One Christian reviewer I respect put this film on his “10 Most Redemptive Films of 2007”, and indeed there is much here to chew on from a spiritual perspective. In the Christian world, much is being written about the need to see the reality of the “Kingdom of God” in the present world, a calling to Christians to engage in social action, and in transformative activity at every level of culture. The challenge to have a “realized eschatology” is a Biblical one, but the history of the Christian church is to fall into two extremes. The first is an “underrealized eschatology,” where Christians show no concern for the problems of this world, and withdraw to wait for their reward “in the sweet by and by.” The other is an “overrealized eschatology” where Christians so look for the reality of the kingdom of God in the present that they equate the gospel of Christ itself with social and political activity and with “good works.” Both extremes distort the Christian message in fundamental ways. Both are extremes that Christians in general and evangelicals in particular have shown affinities to run to.

The Diving Bell is an exceptional reminder of the tension that Christians must live in. On the one hand, we witness people engage Bauby as a human being with real value, and work to allow him to express himself. Through this redemptive work, he does more of a service for humanity than any would have thought possible in his condition. It is a celebration of the value of life that speaks with power to the “quality of life” discussions that go on in medical circles.

At the same time, we see in this film the limits of our redemptive work in this life. Bauby’s imagination, his “butterfly”, helps him keep his sanity, and gives him a sense of purpose. But it is a “butterfly” that allows him to escape his “diving bell,” his body that has failed him so deeply. Even as people expose him to their own faiths, his agnosticism fails to keep him from searching for deeper meanings. He wants something more, and as he is left with only his imagination and his memory, he recognizes that it is not enough. His body has failed. This world has failed to deliver the deepest needs of his soul.

The film leaves us with a certain ambivalence because this challenge remained unresolved in Bauby’s life. Even as we seek to recognize the redemptive reality of God’s kingdom in this world, The Diving Bell is a powerful reminder that the gospel points to something deeper still. At its best, the ways in which God’s kingdom is seen in this world are but a pale reflection of the world that is to come, where the limitations that we feel, and which this film vividly calls us to experience, will be gone, and “real life” can be truly experienced. Even as Christians yearn to see the gospel made manifest now, we should never leave behind the deeper yearning for the “far country,” the true home that we are heading to.