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Dec. 12th, 2005 01:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alonewiththemoonYay for small personal vacations--I took Friday, today and tomorrow off for some much needed downtime. I get time off between Christmas and New Year's so it seems a bit decadent to take time now, but I really wasn't at all sure I would make it that far. Plus I've got shopping to finish. Though so far today all I'm doing is listening to music, playing with the internet, laughing at Ronan as he tries to steal my slippers off my feet, and loading more music onto my mp3 player (side note: genre assignments never cease to amaze me. who knew that mephisto walz were "general metal?"). Shortly I will do some stretching and dancing, shower, go to the used book store and Playtime, eat dinner, and then making a rare appearance at Ceremony. Yes, this is the life.
Last night I saw The Chronicles of Narnia.
Well, the most striking thing, it goes without even saying, was the luminously unearthly Tilda Swinton as the White Witch. She's been rather downplaying her acting in this in recent interviews, perhaps because this kind of role is something that comes easily to her, but she was just perfectly terrifyingly powerful and stunning. Those blonde eyelashes kill me.
So, Tilda aside, I thought most of the acting was excellent. There were one or two slightly sour notes in the acting for me, but not enough to ruin any performances. The girl who played Lucy was just right. I didn't particularly care for Liam Neeson's voice for Aslan, though. A lion needs a deeper voice. I also thought that Aslan was a little too anthropomorphized in his speaking manner and facial expressions, but I know I'm probably in the minority of the movie-going public in preferring animals, even all powerful talking ones, to be more animal than human. It detracted from his regalness and lordliness.
I was a little disappointed in some of the CGI as well. For a couple of examples, Aslan's shoulders frequently looked off when he was walking (you can see the same offness in any number of discovery channel shows with cgi), and there was a cheetah whose movements were recycled enough to be repetitive in some of the crowd scenes (again, I know I'm in the minority in being the sort of person who focuses on the cheetah rather than the action at the front, but this must affect most people even if only subliminally). Other things were very well done, though; the centaurs and minotaurs were believable.
My biggest quibble with the movie is one that I know other people won't agree with, because other people disagreed with me about it last night. I do think that the nearly bloodless battle detracted from the film. I'm not at all saying I want to see a gorefest, but the near complete lack of blood undermined the carefully rendered battle and very well-crafted soundscape that went along with it. I know this was done to keep the film PG, and I have sympathy for that, for the children who are now able to go see the film because of that. But part of what C.S. Lewis was writing about in these books was coming to terms with the full horror of war, both the British people sending their young men off to die while their homes are bombed and also the four children who find they must be brave enough to throw themselves into the battle fray to defend what they knew was right even though it wasn't at all safe or sensible (and in Edmund's case, to redeem himself, a minor mirror sacrifice to Aslan's). We aren't shielded from the idea of blood and messy death in the books. Plus it just created cognitive dissonance for me--how could Peter not be covered in blood after the wolf he had just stabbed in the gut landed on him? Most jarringly, how could a lion kill somebody with his teeth and claws and turn away without a speck of blood? I watch Animal Planet, I know what lions who kill are supposed to look like!
These are more or less small quibbles, but it did mean that while I found this a very enjoyable film and one that did live up to the book, it wasn't a *great* film for me. I did really love parts of it, but I wanted more. Maybe I shouldn't have watched it with an adult's expectations, I don't know. though the anthropomorphizing thing would have bothered me every bit as much, if not more so, when I was a child.
Last night I saw The Chronicles of Narnia.
Well, the most striking thing, it goes without even saying, was the luminously unearthly Tilda Swinton as the White Witch. She's been rather downplaying her acting in this in recent interviews, perhaps because this kind of role is something that comes easily to her, but she was just perfectly terrifyingly powerful and stunning. Those blonde eyelashes kill me.
So, Tilda aside, I thought most of the acting was excellent. There were one or two slightly sour notes in the acting for me, but not enough to ruin any performances. The girl who played Lucy was just right. I didn't particularly care for Liam Neeson's voice for Aslan, though. A lion needs a deeper voice. I also thought that Aslan was a little too anthropomorphized in his speaking manner and facial expressions, but I know I'm probably in the minority of the movie-going public in preferring animals, even all powerful talking ones, to be more animal than human. It detracted from his regalness and lordliness.
I was a little disappointed in some of the CGI as well. For a couple of examples, Aslan's shoulders frequently looked off when he was walking (you can see the same offness in any number of discovery channel shows with cgi), and there was a cheetah whose movements were recycled enough to be repetitive in some of the crowd scenes (again, I know I'm in the minority in being the sort of person who focuses on the cheetah rather than the action at the front, but this must affect most people even if only subliminally). Other things were very well done, though; the centaurs and minotaurs were believable.
My biggest quibble with the movie is one that I know other people won't agree with, because other people disagreed with me about it last night. I do think that the nearly bloodless battle detracted from the film. I'm not at all saying I want to see a gorefest, but the near complete lack of blood undermined the carefully rendered battle and very well-crafted soundscape that went along with it. I know this was done to keep the film PG, and I have sympathy for that, for the children who are now able to go see the film because of that. But part of what C.S. Lewis was writing about in these books was coming to terms with the full horror of war, both the British people sending their young men off to die while their homes are bombed and also the four children who find they must be brave enough to throw themselves into the battle fray to defend what they knew was right even though it wasn't at all safe or sensible (and in Edmund's case, to redeem himself, a minor mirror sacrifice to Aslan's). We aren't shielded from the idea of blood and messy death in the books. Plus it just created cognitive dissonance for me--how could Peter not be covered in blood after the wolf he had just stabbed in the gut landed on him? Most jarringly, how could a lion kill somebody with his teeth and claws and turn away without a speck of blood? I watch Animal Planet, I know what lions who kill are supposed to look like!
These are more or less small quibbles, but it did mean that while I found this a very enjoyable film and one that did live up to the book, it wasn't a *great* film for me. I did really love parts of it, but I wanted more. Maybe I shouldn't have watched it with an adult's expectations, I don't know. though the anthropomorphizing thing would have bothered me every bit as much, if not more so, when I was a child.
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no subject
Date: 2005-12-12 07:44 pm (UTC)But I reeeeaaaally want to see it soon.
Narnia
Date: 2005-12-12 08:28 pm (UTC)I haven't read these since I was a kid, so I forget a lot of it. Brian just actually read Lion, Witch and the Wardrobe on the bus to NYC. He said that the battle scene was pretty quick, a bit glossed over and only lasted a few pages (he was guessing the movie would expand on it).
So perhaps that's another reason why it wasn't so bloody? Keep in mind, I haven't seen it yet either . . .
no subject
Date: 2005-12-12 09:55 pm (UTC)Thank you! OMG did that bug me. Especially because there was that one line about. "Clean your sword." I mumbled under my breath, "Why? It's still pristine!.
I'm convinced that in mythical Narnia, people have squeaky clean clear blood. I enjoyed the movie, but found it really annoying that once again, we have violence, but not signs of violence. I'm more pissed that people don't appear to have really been hurt, injuried or killed in movies, then the fact that there are guns, weaponry, or other violent confrontations. I really think there are ways to show violence without it being gratuitous. When people get stabbed they bleed. Cause and effect. It should be shown.