A counter-productive allegory

Rating: 7/10 (9 December 2005)

Has the film downplayed the book's Christian allegory? Lewis's intent is still strikingly clear on screen. You get a hint of his dubious 'Lord, liar, or lunatic' trilemma from the Professor before the children even get through the wardrobe; and Edmund's temptation by Turkish Delight could be construed as a dangerous flirtation with Islam. But it's in the parallels of Aslan with Christ in the second part of the film that things get really obvious. The lion has his own Garden of Gethsemane moment before going off to be sacrificed instead of the sinful 'son of Adam', he is humiliated before being killed, his body is tended by two weeping women, and then he rises from the dead.
Lewis's intention was to prepare children's minds for reception of the Gospel by casting it in an adventure story, but surely there's a danger here. If you present Christ's sacrifice and resurrection in terms of magical fantasy, don't you make it more difficult for children to make the leap to understanding the New Testament as fact rather than just another parallel myth? The other key problem is that there is no logic to Aslan's passion: there's some mumbling about the 'deep magic' requiring that the Witch have a sacrifice, but I would struggle to explain to a child WHY it was required, or how this deep magic could be a force of absolute good. Rather than making the Christian message easier to assimilate, Lewis's tale just makes it seem confusing.