A Bit About Compasses

I tried to resist for a while, but then when an opportunity presented itself, I gave in and went to watch The Golden Compass. I had heard so much rumbling about this alleged atheist film, written by a man who -gasp!- creates a world where God dies. (Heck I dunno. . .Nietzsche anyone? Why is this a big deal every time someone writes it?) I heard the books were written as an answer to C.S. Lewis' masterful and delightful Chronicles of Narnia series, which are a thinly veiled allegory of Christianity.

I have no beef with anyone writing a book about atheism. I have no problem with them writing a book about atheism as a tit-for-tat to another book about Christianity. Similar things have been done in both directions, like the Invictus poem, which was then countered by a Christian version which I think was called "Pilot of My Soul" or something like that.

Suffice it to say, I find no earth-shattering threat in such a book. I don't even find a china shattering threat. However, I am also somewhat selective of which ideas are supported by my money, and I am not exactly thrilled to financially empower an idea with which I do not agree. This film and book are precisely such an idea.

I got around this scruple by getting free tickets to the theater. Problem solved, and I could settle my curiosity about this thing without funding it at the same time. The movie I payed for was I am Legend. -Fan.Friggin.Tastic- but that is a post for another time maybe.

Golden Compass looks really good in the previews. I guess that is what previews are for. Unfortunately however, the previews were much better than the movie itself. This movie fell flat on its mildly intelligent face almost from the very beginning. I have not read the books, so I cannot speak for them, but the movie was insipid and uninspired. There were a few parts that were decent. I like the idea of having your soul be an animal that accompanies you everywhere you go. You would never be lonely, then. I also like the idea of the talking polar bears who wear armor. The bears had a really cool fight scene (it was. . .erm. . .jaw-dropping, you might say). But that is where the praise has to end, more is the pity.

The cadence of the film was incredibly rushed. We were launched into this story about some little girl who can read compasses before we even know enough about her to care about her, and that is the pace of the whole show. The character development is non-existent. The plot is also loose and vague. For unexplained reasons, only this little girl can read this magic compass that tells only the truth (which poses some major philosophical questions about situations when there are more than one truth, but I digress). The fact that she can know is somehow a threat to the big, bad church. Why that is a threat is also unexplained, except it has something to do with a substance called Dust, which is also unexplained, but which you could imagine as a sort of life-force.

The big, bad church is kidnapping kids. They want to separate the kiddies from their animal-souls. Why? Wish I could tell you. Also unexplained. Another unexplained point is why little-miss-compass-queen feels she is up to the task of saving said kiddies from their prison in the frozen North. She makes a promise to rescue her little buddy, but she herself is an orphan with 0 resources to mount an escape. Not letting that stop her, she tries anyway.

The part of the movie that bothers me the most is the air-cowboy. Some people call him Maurice (wee-whew). Little-compass-queen lands in this rough-neck northern town where she knows literally no one. She has a random conversation lasting maybe 20 sentences with this old cowboy, and somehow in that time earns the man's undying devotion. Why? Also unexplained. The only even slightly nice or impressive thing the compass has done to this point is told the little girl where the bear's armor is. She tells the bear (who is an alcoholic outcast in the town) where the armor is, and then he, too seems to owe her his life.

It is all too convenient, all too contrived. Even for an allegory. There were brief glimpses of a possible sub-text. There were some obvious corollaries between things in the story and real-world groups or ideas, however these corollaries were so strained and comical as to lose their potential power. A church that wants to tear the souls away from children to make them more teachable? Please. How about a church who consumes the souls of children to give them power or something. Much better.

The only thing I really liked about this movie was Nicole Kidman's character. This role was so effortless, I think it was not really acting, but just her being herself. You see, I have this suspicion that she is really a horrendous beast of a woman, who happens to look fantastic.

In the end, I left the movie feeling two things: disappointed that the ideas behind the movie were too weak to have any power in movie form, and thankful to C.S. Lewis for writing the Chronicles of Narnia with such clarity and power. One ironic thing I saw: the preview for the next Narnia movie played before the movie started. Sweet.