Mechtild's

I love the caps for this scene. Except for "Nuclear Gladys" (as it was called on the messageboard I frequented while the films were coming out), the scene is uninterrupted cinematic gorgeousness. It's a different animal from the book's Lothlórien scenes, but as cinema it really works. The book's Lórien, with its images of jewel-fresh nature sparkling with "poignant freshness" under a golden sun, becomes a world of shadows , cold and luminous as if lit by a winter moon. Instead of a sense of safe haven, the Fellowship enters a realm pulsing with a feeling of foreboding and danger. Their Elven hosts warn rather than welcome. My book-reading self says, "this is wrong, wrong, wrong!" but my film-going self is mesmerised. Why does it work, and why does it seem faithful, even though it is so wide of the original? I think it's because it strongly evokes what Tolkien elsewhere said about Faerie.

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