The Golden Compass = The Anti-Christ

I am not going to preface this rant with any warning about the "spoilers" contained within. If you are the sort of person who gets upset when someone ruins the non-existing plot twists of a movie based on a children's book, then you have stumbled upon this blogue by mistake. Shame on you.

Yesterday I saw the film The Golden Compass. I had high hopes based on two factors: 1) My sister really likes the source material and has talked up the story
2) The trailer made me cry

Now, emotional instability issues aside, movie trailers have always had a special pull on my heartstrings. Maybe it's because, when all cynicism is laid aside, I want very badly to be moved by art and when you distill a 2 hour film down to a minute and a half, with any luck you can concentrate its emotional impact. In a coming post, I will share a partial list of movie trailers that have made me cry.

The Golden Compass is set in a fantastical world, much like our own except sillier. Instead of digital technology and slang, everyone speaks with fake-proper English accents and machines are all driven by shiny gilded gears and pulleys. And what looks like majik. The other key difference between our world and theirs is that in The Golden Compass, people's souls are not internal, but instead projected into the outside world as animal companions. Aside from giving the CG animators something to have fun with, this allows for the film's one Big Idea.

The conflict in the story arises when a girl goes on an adventure for No Reason and comes in contact with a group of Evil Old White Men called The Magistrate. They seem to represent the Catholic Church. The Magistrate wants to use Science to disconnect children from their animal companions, their souls. While the movie does a piss-poor job of explaining why anyone would construct an Evil Plan around something so silly, I have my own feelings on the matter.

The Church does not like the idea that people have a personal, direct relationship to their spirituality. By having a pet soul following you around, you are always aware of the interconnectedness of life and are probably less of a douchebag, although several villains in the film challenge this assumption. The Church wants people to rely on it for their spirituality. The Church does not want people to be able to worship on their own, to feel good about their own souls. Wait, am I talking about the real life Catholic Church or the movie Magistrate? A parallel!

The movie's conflict reminds me of that time the Catholic Church outlawed the identification of Saints by any party other than itself. Only the Church can tell you what is spiritual and what is not. The movie raises the question of autonomous faith. Is it appropriate for people to have that personal connection to the divine, or must Christopher Lee, in a wasteful two-line role, decide for us?

Also, the movie sucked.