Of Edmund and Alexander

To be honest, I was not expecting to enjoy The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe quite so much. It is a film for kids, and Andrew Adamson has done a workmanlike, if not spectacular, job of bringing the C.S. Lewis book to the screen. But what made the film enjoyable for me was noticing the way I respond to the characters as an adult, compared to my memories as a child of 7 or 8, when reading the book for the first time.

When I read the book as a child, Edmund really annoyed me. I couldn't understand what made him want to ride off with the White Witch and betray his brother and sisters. The Witch was so obviously evil - why did Edmund want to hang out with her? I wanted to get on with the big exciting battle between Aslan and the Witch.

But with a few more years under my belt, I now recognise that Edmund reflects some of the venality and selfishness that lies in all of us. (And of course Edmund's fall and redemption is really the central drama of the story). By contrast, this time around it was Peter, Susan and Lucy that really annoyed me, appearing as little more than Enid Blyton cardboard cutouts, all eager for lashings of ginger beer. No wonder Edmund wanted to run away from them.

The other thing that struck me was that the Edmund in the film was the dead spitting image of Alexander Ekdahl, the titular character in Ingmar Bergman's 1982 film Fanny and Alexander.

Edmund Pevensie (Skandar Keynes), 2005

Alexander Ekdahl (Bertil Guve), 1982

Despite the resemblance on celluloid, of course, Edmund and Alexander are far from parallel characters. Edmund ultimately casts aside his "childishness" through Aslan's act of atonement (e~mergent kiwi offers a wider theological exploration of Aslan's sacrifice). Alexander's childishness (he's gifted with a precocious imagination) is both a weakness and a source of great strength, but ultimately in F & A, Alexander's stubborn belief in the imaginative act is vindicated.

I imagine that C.S. Lewis would not have approved of Alexander Ekdahl and his liberal humanist, Swedish bourgeois extended family. But at the same time, the Ekdahls are infinitely forgiving of the weaknesses among their whanau - an unconditional philosophy of acceptance that would put cantakerous old C.S. Lewis to shame.