The Chronicles of Narnia:
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe

With all the fuss being made over the cinematic release of the C S Lewis classic, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, I had refused to get my hopes up or behave like this was a defining moment for the Christian faith in the West. However, I also knew Disney will not just slap its label on something shoddy and half-baked. But could Disney really release a good film of a story that was so clearly full of references to Jesus and the Christian story of redemption?

When I walked out of the theater, I had to admit I was impressed. They did it; right down to some of the essential wording straight from the book (even though one of the critical lines on the lips of Mr Beaver about Aslan being good, but definitely not safe, is moved to the end of the film and placed in a sort of sappy interchange between Lucy and Mr Tumnus). Because the film was so faithful to the book there were virtually no surprises in the story itself. The surprises were all visual. The joy I felt reading these stories as a child was only heightened by the visual joy I felt at seeing the story come alive almost exactly as I had imagined it. This is a true success. Indeed, it is a success that Lewis himself would have been proud of. When asked repeatedly whether he was writing an allegory he preferred instead to refer to his style, not as allegorical, but as supposal.

In a December 1959 letter to a young girl named Sophia Storr, he explains the difference: “I don't say. 'Let us represent Christ as Aslan.' I say, 'Supposing there was a world like Narnia, and supposing, like ours, it needed redemption, let us imagine what sort of Incarnation and Passion and Resurrection Christ would happen there.'”

And imagination is exactly what is needed. In Narnia, as in God’s kingdom, the world opens to those with the most active and nimble imagination. In a reversal of the usual logic, Lucy, the youngest, is more prepared and capable of navigating life in Narnia than her older and more “realistic” siblings.

Like many fans, I read these stories—The Chronicles of Narnia—when I was 8 or 9. The story was riveting and I can remember not being able to read them fast enough and simultaneously disappointed that they were “already over.” In the same way that your backyard seemed bigger when you were five than when you visit your old house at 21, I remember the story being longer and more complicated as a child. However, the real brilliance of this film is that the landscape and the characters come through as deep and real and vast as I remember.

What is truly remarkable about the story itself is that C S Lewis, known as one of the 20th century’s ablest apologist for Christianity, does his best and most lasting and universally accessible work in the genre of fantasy and myth. Writing in the early 1950s, Lewis is decades ahead of his time, inviting his readers to know the truth through imagination and story.

Just as the four children are drawn into a grand, almost unimaginable story and find themselves the unwitting actors in the drama, so the viewer is drawn in and invited to contemplate a story larger and richer than the words and images that dance across the screen or the world that opens to our five sense.
Through Lewis’ myth-making we are invited to experience truth.

Read the Signs mag article on this move here.