Last night I went to see The Golden Compass, with some friends from church. I am aware of all the controversy about the film, but I don’t really want to comment on that. There were, however, a lot of things that struck me from the film, and this is my attempt to work through some of them!
Firstly, I loved the sense of destiny surrounding Lyra, the main character. She grows up almost entirely oblivious of this, running pell-mell around the streets and roofs of a futuristic Oxford. She was, however, born to be more than a normal girl. There is a sense of fight and determination about her. When she finds out that children are being stolen, something in her rises up and calls her to fight against this. (I’ll concede that this is portrayed more strongly in the book than in the cinematic version). This made me think about how this is true for each one of us, how we have a purpose and a destiny, and we’re found in a constant battle to find that, a voyage of discovery to uncover who we were born to be.
I also liked the complexity of Mrs Coulter, played in the film by Nicole Kidman. At the risk of spoiling the plot… she is, at first, portrayed as quite a sinister character, her intentions are not clear, and we soon see a cold, cruel side to her. As the film goes on, she is the stereotypical ‘baddie’. Then, towards the end of the story, she sweeps in and saves Lyra, just in the nick of time. We learn that she is actually Lyra’s mother. (Again, in the book this fact is made clearly much earlier on). This contradiction brought us all up with a start. It made me think that so often situations are not clear cut – those who are portrayed as wicked are sometimes inherently good, while those we trust can sometimes betray us most deeply. Our interactions are a mixture of intention, motive, agenda, spontaneity, conscience and circumstance.
I did struggle quite a bit with all the talk of demons, and of looking into a golden compass to find the truth… and the violence of some of the battle scenes made me blink a bit at the PG rating, but on the whole it was an alright film.
It backed up my books vs films thing though… the book is so much better – richer, more intricate, deep. Hmmm.
