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O.k., after the dark and disturbing Batman I guess we all need to lighten up a little.
The more I think about this whole Christmas thing, the more reasonable all this seems. What I enjoy about Christmas is the time I spend with my friends and family, enjoying homemade cookies from Grandma, going for a mulled wine on the Christmas market, preparing some nice presents that people will enjoy come Christmas Eve.
And let’s not act as if we are going through this Christmas thing because we are all deeply spiritual and rejoyce for the birth of Christ – I am pretty sure that at least 70% of the people will not name Jesus as the reason for enjoying Christmas – but then again my atheistic worldview might lead me to preposterous generalisations.
To me it seems very plausible that in a time that is basically not nice (darkness around 4 o’clock, cold, windy, catching a cold) people need something to look forward to. If you look at snow, it is not really a good thing, based on survival-thinking. It is cold, melts, if you are not dressed properly you will catch a cold like I caught yesterday…
Yet I don’t associate it with this. When I see snow I think of the fun one can have, the sensation of sitting together in a warm room with the people I love. Walking through the snowing evening reminds me of Christmas and all the celebration around it – it makes this goddamn bearable – even funny and satisfactory.
Without Christmas to look forward, December would be a cold brutal and unfriendly month.
Which is another reason why Christmas films don’t always apply to the films we watch during the rest of the year. I might enjoy my movies more Aronofsky than Ashton Kutcher, but Christmas movies can be preachy as hell and I won’t mind it as much as I do with the shit that gets put out around Valentine’s day.
Narnia falls into exactly this category. It is a shallow movie at best, a propaganda tool for christianity at worst. It represents everything that is wrong about christianity and a progressive christian who truly lives after the guidelines of Jesus Christ should condemn the morality that gets displayed in the most hypocritical and simple minded way.
But when you put the political and religious agenda aside and stop comparing it to The Lord of the Rings, you have a beautifully made movie, with gorgeous set pieces and a magical atmosphere that the sequel (which turned into a true “non christians are stupid and evil” propaganda movie) never managed hit again.
Enjoy the snowy atmosphere and Tilda Swinton as deliciously evil snow queen, maybe get a laugh out of Santa Clause serving as the Tony Stark of Narnia, learning their kids the value of Christmas by giving them weapons to slay the non-believers…
all in all a heartwarming naive piece of Christmas fiction… let’s hope it remains fictional
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