Hench-desi #1
Kiran Shah, who’s 4’1″ tall, plays Ginarrbrik the White Witch’s dwarf henchman in The Chronicles of Narnia: the Lion, the Witch and the Wardobe. And it’s a pretty big role. He gets to gasp theatrically when he’s eventually nailed with an arrow. The moment drew big laughs.
It’s interesting seeing a henchman with an obviously desi accent, though not new. Shah also played scale double for all four hobbits in Lord of the Rings.
[Born] 28 September 1956 [in] Nairobi, Kenya… Because of his size, versatility, and willingness, Shah is much in high demand as a perspective stunt-double for long-shots in action scenes. Auditioned for the part of R2-D2 in Star Wars (1977), narrowly losing out to Kenny Baker. Worked as a tailor’s apprentice for six months before seriously starting his acting/stunt career. [Link]
You know how you can tell in the first 10 minutes that a movie is going to deeply suck, and all you can do is sigh and settle in? That’s Narnia, and its 76% favorable rating on Rotten Tomatoes is a joke. I can only assume reviewers are paying deference to the excellent novels and don’t want to get caught on the wrong side of another mega-franchise. The script has all the anachronistic smarminess of 1939’s The Wizard of Oz. Its fundamental problem is you’re stuck watching bad child actors for nearly three hours. The movie is slow, the editing slack, the lines cheesy.
And it’s fundamentally The Passion of the Simba. The movie, paid for in part by a wealthy Christian religious activist, is awash in Biblical allegory. Its climax is a lame, in-your-face re-enactment of Jesus’ resurrection that had my Jewish theater mates groaning. The New York audience laughed openly at all the unintentional camp. There’s also some jarringly bad CGI (mismatched lighting against a green screen, an obvious transition from glowing graphical fur to fakey, inert stuffed animal). After the movie, I overheard much griping outside the theater, in the bathroom line and on the subway.
This movie is worse than Harry Potters 1 and 2, which I though were kiddie and a snooze.
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Hench-desi #2
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p>Here’s a production still of Kal Penn as henchman Stanfurd in Superman Returns (via Turbanhead):
“also, this blog which you find “anti-christian” fault with has six founding members: TWO are christian.”
That’s a laugh. It more accurate to say two are Christian in name only. In my year of reading this site there has never been a post with a Christian point of view. No post had an implicit or explicit reference to the Bible or Church tradition as a source of truth. Vinod is a materialist with libertarian prejudices and Anna is a materialist with feminist prejudices. Razib is at least honest about his beliefs. He rejects the Koran as the source of truth or a source of truth.
chris: it’s such an honor to meet and be evaluated by you virtually– tell me, when did G-d bestow the right to judge how Christian someone is upon you? because surely you must get your orders from above, if you’re doing such important work, right? truly, i am not worthy of being discussed by someone with a direct line to heaven!
And, contrary to appearances, Razib doesn’t actually post in this blog đ
So what if Vinod is a Libertarian? Or if Anna’s a feminist? Does this go against Biblical teachings? I think not. If you wanna start a theological argument, come over to dippu- I’ll gladly comply.
Top 3 Campy scenes from “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe”.
When they are hunting the stag doesn’t Peter look like the king from the Burger King commercials.
At the coronation, Peter is introduced as ĂâPeter the MagnificentĂâ right before he is hit over the head with his Throne from Edmund turned ĂâheelĂâ (think WWF).
When Aslan is leaving Cair Paravel, he is walking along the beachĂâŚdid anyone else think ĂâFootprintsĂâ. For whatever reason my friend and I found this really funny and were laughing for a good 30 seconds (we even got a shut up from other members of the audience).
Overall the movie was okĂâŚI wouldnĂât say that I dislike it, but really made wonder if I had misjudged the books I had read as a kid.
So did some reviewers:
“He is defintiely a christian writer, and his beliefs do seep into his writing…but he is of a generation, time, and educational background that offers a more nuanced, intelligent, accepting take than the evangelical wingnuts who’ve claimed that role today.”
Well, put Cicatrix – I agree. Folks who think that Lewis was some kind of former-day evangelical would do well to read An Wilson’s biography of the man. I’m not surprised to read about subtle racial overtones in Narnia – after all they’re in Tolkien as well.
Chris – have you read Matthew 7:1 lately?
In shorter syllables: anti-this movie.
Wikipedia:
Another profound bias of such classifications is that it is quite rare to include nominally Christian or Jewish or Buddhist guerrillas in any analysis of those faiths’ views of politics, but quite common if it is Islam under discussionĂâand likely being criticized.
The giant halo behind the resurrection didn’t tip you off? The Crusades-like armor? The Judas theme? All the double entendre lines?
not the greatest fan of narnia – but was deeply touched by shadowlands, a biopic on lewis’ relationship with gresham. An excerpt from the derivative play …
Arent those just the most beautiful words you’ve read in a while. Anyhow, I digress…
I dont think anyone doubts that Lewis was a deeply religious person, and that his books reflect his beliefs – but what’s wrong with that – most movies can … directly or indirectly… be interpreted as having religious undertones – there’s no need to be overt about it – think Matrix, Star Wars, Superman … and all the references to the favored/chosen One.
An interesting fact I came across on the CBC the other day – the music group Six pence none the richer gets its name from a CS Lewis penned quote – and thier famous song “kiss me” is really about a kiss from the lord, their savior. Think about that the next time the song plays in your radio while you’re with your loved one đ
That being said – there are layers to most any piece of pop-art – whether we choose to see it or not – think of everyone out there singing along to U2’s “One love”, or the Beatles’ “hide your love away”… do you think they are celebrating same-sex love… probably not… but that’s what the songs were about
Anyway – my point was – what you see in it or not doesnt matter to a lot of people who want to see a cinema picturization of a favorite childhood read. So why would any one of us want to rain down on someone’s innocent pleasure – some things are best left unquestioned and unknown.
Manish,
To clarify: in my opinion, the Christianity aspect did not overshadow the story except for the ‘sacrifice’ bit.
Yes, I did notice the rest, but I wasn’t looking for the Christianity bits, so it was ok.
CS Lewis flirted with Hinduism before turning to Christianity, he gavce it second place; the first reason is that “paganism” lived unreconstructed besides “philosophy” in Hinduism and second, (curiously) Hinduism has no “historical” faith claim.
But after sorting out what he called the perplexing multiplicity of religions, he concluded that there were only two possible answers: Hinduism or Christianity. Of these two Lewis further stated:
Everything else was either a preparation for, or else … a vulgarization of, these. Whatever you could find elsewhere you could find better in one of these. But Hinduism seemed to have two disqualifications. For one thing, it appeared to be not so much a moralized and philosophical maturity of paganism as a mere oil‑and‑water coexistence of philosophy side by side with paganism unpurged; the Brahmin meditating in the forest, and, in the village a few miles away, temple prostitution, sati, cruelty, monstrosity.
And secondly, there was no such historical claim as in Christianity. I was by now too experienced in literary criticism to regard the Gospels as myths. They had not the mythical taste. And yet the very matter which they set down in their artless, historical fashion‑those narrow, unattractive Jews, too blind to the mythical wealth of the pagan world around them‑was precisely the matter of the great myths. If ever a myth had become fact, had been incarnated, it would be just like this. And nothing else in all literature was just like this. Myths were like it in one way. Histories were like it in another. But nothing was simply like it
And no person was Eke the Person it depicted; as real, as recognizable (ten times more so than Eckermann’s Goethe or Lockhart’ s Scott), yet also luminous, lit by a light from beyond the world, a god. But if a god‑we are no longer polytheists‑then not a god, but God. Here and here only in all time the myth must have become fact the Word, flesh; God, Man. 24
The final transition for Lewis was almost in place. As he approached his conclusion, a resistance toward Christianity sprang up, almost as strong as his previous resistance toward theism.
Finally one evening, Lewis chose to dine with Tolkien and Dyson at Magdalen. Myth and resurrection were fresh on his mind. As the evening’s conversation wore on, Lewis began to more clearly understand both the nature and purpose of Christianity. After dinner they took a stroll up Addison’s Walk toward Lewis’s room where they stayed and talked until 3:00 a.m., when Tolkien had to leave. Walking around the grounds at Oxford, Lewis and Dyson continued their conversation for another hour.
As part of my grad school research, I found it interesting that neither Tolkien nor Lewis wrote their magnum opuses (opi?) from religious perspectives. Both of them were focused on the idea of creating a pagan mythos, a pre-Christian tradition that they felt the British Isles lacked, unlike say for example, the Greeks or the Germans. If anything, I’d argue that Lewis’ work taps into a greater archetype that we find it easy to qualify as “Christian” or not; I do remember in one of his letters to Tolkien (now in Tolkien’s son, Chris’ possession), he wrote about how he found the attempt to create a world and society untouched by Biblical influence to be stimulating.
It’s funny; everyone goes on about the “obvious” theological overtones of LoTR for example, but Tolkien writes (ALL over the place) that he did NOT want anyone to read Christianity into his story; at one point, I think he’d even commented in a letter to his editor that he was slightly frustrated because one climactic resurrection was being hailed as a Christ-like act, even though he’d had The Heliand and Norse myth in mind (Odin hanging from the tree, descending to Hell and returning).
Obviously everyone’s entitled to his/her own opinion; I just feel that if you take a step back from the melodrama (and trust me, we queens KNOW our drama), it’s not so hard to see the common mythological archetypes that so many works of literature draw upon; betrayal, sacrifice, resurrection. I think those are more humanistic notions than anything else; tying them purely to religion(s) isn’t an intelligent way to approach the topic. Admittedly, Lewis came to Christianity through his fascination with myth and the areas where it coincided with his religious bent, but I think that the Narnia books are less about pure religion than about the religious personifications and anthropology that he seemed to find everywhere. It’s no accident that scenes of sacrifice and betrayal (and resurrection) weigh so heavily upon people; there’s a tradition, both pagan and Christian that informs and strengthens the impact that such tales have.
Discussion of Lewis aside (and I don’t think the “racist” part of it is really worth addressing in depth, since it’s not uncommon to demonise whoever is different from you, and what better way to do it than starting with the most obvious trait: skin colour, vs. “I’m going to make them evil so everyone can tell, because…because…they’ll have purple tongues!” a la myself after sufficient vodka/blackcurrants), I rather enjoyed the movie. Tilda Swinton scared the bejeezus out of me, repeatedly, but more importantly, I felt like despite the Disney-ka-daagh, the film stayed pretty true to the book.
Sin,
i’m not very familiar with Tolkein, but do you know the reason the enemies were from the south and east? i’ve always thought that refered to the ottoman and moorish presence
Raju,
I’d have to go back and check my notes, but off the top of my head, I believe it was because Tolkien took the majority of his narrative motivation from Finnish and Nordic mythology (The Kalevala and The Poetic Eddas); in those, given how the original cultures were basically geographically north and west-based, enemies would always come from the direction that one was least familiar with (a meta-commentary on several things, not the least of which was dramatic intensity rooted in the tales being largely oral traditions). The West was always where good people would go on dying, the fabled “other” lands, and the North was mysterious but part of the world that the people of those cultures inhabited. If you’re really interested, give me a few days and I’ll look it up for you. Tolkien actually also based his work on “Le Chanson de Roland” which had huge Ottoman/Moorish elements in it (Saracens and the like), but interestingly enough, the tale effectively equates “The Mohammedans” with Christians, to the extent where even the Muslims have their own (inaccurate) “Holy Trinity” (Apollo, Mohammaed and someone else whose name I can’t remember). They’re identical to the Christians, just dark and “warped”, which is an interesting dramatic ploy.
Speaking of Narnia: For those of you who don’t watch SNL regularly; check this piece out. My bro thinks there’s some inspiration drawn from “curry ‘n rice girl” from mc vikram and luda.
You don’t sound like a typical “artist” who will probably kill himself because that’s the only truly creative thing he’s capable of at all! haha
Your Jewish theater friends are probably the type of people who make decent people want to vomit…I mean nothing says annoying more than “Jewish theater friends”…it’s as if you actually aren’t a banal nihilist wannabe artist and you’re writing this as a satire and you wanted to sound as hypocritical and amateurish as possible.
Nothing says amateur like a review where critique takes a back seat to deep inner hatred for all things Christian…all too common among the opinion crowd, (aka the parasites who don’t contribute anything to society yet sit around and criticize it as if they aren’t worthless parasites and themselves the biggest part of the problem).
Anyway you’re in top of the world babe! Me and 70 other people have read your blog..that’s like a dollar in possible ad revenue! Narnia wasn’t a great movie…it lacked what this blog lacks, a clear purpose–something the books most certainly have. As you don’t seem like the reading type I understand that it’s easier on your self esteem to hate something than to understand it.