The 2003 Peter Pan is pretty good, except for the boringly routine fight scenes.  P. J. Hogan‘s film version of the 1904 British play (very old) captures much of playwright Barrie’s sophistication and all of his high spirits.  It concentrates on Wendy Darling’s youthful affection for Peter Pan and is aware of Peter’s inability to love, albeit he does know how to grieve for a dead or dying Tinkerbell. . . It dazzles the eye and, almost as much, enchants the mind.

Jeremy Sumpter (Peter) is one of those child actors who, to borrow another critic’s truthful phrase, merely follow the director’s orders, nothing more.  Not so Rachel Hurd-Wood as Wendy:  she’s spontaneous and unmannered.  In a double role—that of Mr. Darling and that of Captain Hook—the versatile Jason Isaacs is thoroughly engaging, while Lynn Redgrave never sounds a false note as the Darling children’s aunt.

The 2003 Peter Pan is pretty good, except for the boringly routine fight scenes.  P. J. Hogan‘s film version of the 1904 British play (very old) captures much of playwright Barrie’s sophistication and all of his high spirits.  It concentrates on Wendy Darling’s youthful affection for Peter Pan and is aware of Peter’s inability to love, albeit he does know how to grieve for a dead or dying Tinkerbell. . . It dazzles the eye and, almost as much, enchants the mind.

Jeremy Sumpter (Peter) is one of those child actors who, to borrow another critic’s truthful phrase, merely follow the director’s orders, nothing more.  Not so Rachel Hurd-Wood as Wendy:  she’s spontaneous and unmannered.  In a double role—that of Mr. Darling and that of Captain Hook—the versatile Jason Isaacs is thoroughly engaging, while Lynn Redgrave never sounds a false note as the Darling children’s aunt.

After the release of Antonioni’s Eclipse, some of Truffaut’s stuff and, Heaven help us, Godard’s movies, Ingmar Bergman decided to make a film that was weird.  He made the soporific Persona (1967) with its weird opening montage and its weird bits and pieces.  A complete failure, the film has very little significant meaning.

A Passion (U.S. title: The Passion of Anna, 1969) was better—at least it wasn’t dull—but, sadly, it was never enough to be weird (or unusual).  It is quite evident that after the making of such films as Wild Strawberries and Winter Light, Bergman’s intellectual development became stunted; he was no thinker.  Cries and Whispers (1972) was a candid intellectual fraud.  Well did it depict human agony, but there were no real brains behind it.  Face to Face (1976) was just as weak, and, for all its power, Scenes from a Marriage (1973) was unchallenging enough to have the Jan Malmsjo character, Peter, question superciliously the meaning of an old Christian hymn.  This is because Bergman questions it.  But it doesn’t much matter what the Swedish director questions since he mainly provides only emotional depth.  He fashions art, to be sure, but so far (I haven’t yet seen Thirst or To Joy) it is only in Winter Light and My Summer with Monica that I can enjoy this art in full measure.  I’ll be leaving Persona on the shelf.

Hendrick Ibsen‘s play The Lady from the Sea is about alienation from the self—in a woman named Ellida.  Her own mind is resisting her marriage to her husband, Dr. Wangel, because she did not have “free will” upon accepting his years-ago proposal.  But Wangel is a good man, and the home he has built for Ellida can be considered a home of love.

Alas, this may not be the kind of home in which Arnholm and Bolette, Ellida’s stepdaughter, live after they get married, for Bolette glorifies, to the exclusion of everything else, experiencing the world.  Certainly she does not glorify Arnhom (her former teacher) because she does not yet love him.  But in the future . . .?  Ibsen’s play is heartening without being wholly happy.  It is a small-scale work filmed, with impeccable acting, by the BBC in 1974.  I greatly appreciate the production.

These days the plot of The Lady from the Sea is rather stale.  Still, the play is interesting and probing.  Eileen Atkins is histrionically authoritative, and beautifully sensitive, as Ellida.  Denholm Elliott always knew how to enact a good man; he is masterly and never boring.  Never false is the way to describe Michael Feast as an enthusiastic would-be artist.  Carole Nimmons is a strikingly authentic Bolette.  All the actors are great in this respectable TV mounting.

A British comedian and an atheist, Ricky Gervais remarked to a TV talk show host that if all the sacred books such as the Bible were to disappear, to perish, they would never be written again.  By contrast, if all the science books that have been penned were to disappear, they would be written again since the facts contained in them would be re-discovered and re-established.  But Mr. Gervais is wrong.  He’s right about the Book of Mormon, wrong about the Bible.  Biblical doctrine would emerge again because God would still be doing His salvific work.  People would still find out about the Atonement and justification by faith, etc.—palpably they would find out—and the news would be rapidly written down, as it was in Paul’s epistles.  Revelation would still exist.  It would not be withheld.