Review

Christmas culture

Culture

20 December 2023

5 min read

Five Christmas films to revel in

Haunting, salving, teary, side-splitting and glorious - our recommended festive films.

Yaroslav Walker

Yaroslav is Vicar of Christ Church, Hampstead.

Muppet characters dressed as Dickensian characters stand in a snowy street.

'Dickens made the fatal error of not putting Muppets into his story.'

‘Tis the season to be jolly and watching a good film with a cup of tea and a biscuit, while the freezing wind and rain whip at the window, can be one of the jolliest things you can do this year. The genre of ‘Christmas’ has only grown and grown over the decades, so if you’re stumped by the myriad of choices – often dreadful schlock that feature the word ‘Prince’ and ‘Christmas’ in the title superimposed over a picture of two ludicrously attractive people staring lovingly into each other’s eyes in a blizzard – take comfort in my Top 5 Christmas films.

Note – this is my top 5. My personal top 5. These are not the ‘best’ Christmas films. You will not find It’s a Wonderful Life on here. It is glorious and lovely, but I saw it too late in life, and just don’t emotionally resonate with it as much as other Christmas films. I will not apologise. You will not see Die Hard. It is indeed and iconic action film, with a superb Alan Rickman performance, and it is indeed set at a Christmas party…but that isn’t enough to make it a ‘Christmas film’. I WILL NOT APOLOGISE!

5. The Nightmare Before Christmas

An animated scene shows a grandmother readng a story to children on her lap in front of a fire.

I would have put this film higher up the list if not for the fact that it straddles two seasons – All Hollows and Christmas. This film is iconic, however. The stop-motion animation gives the whole affair an extra haunting air. The music is superb – I still find myself humming What’s This every few weeks. The story is unhinged (what else do you expect from Tim Burton?) but to just the right degree, and behind the ghoulish setting and mad-cap story there is a good old-fashioned moral-of-the-story for children and adults alike to enjoy. Nightmare is a marvellous reminder of what it means to have the Christmas spirit, and the great thing about it is that it’s a film you can enjoy any time from October 31st!

4. Bad Santa

A dishevelled looking Santa, without a beard, stares to the side.

Billy Bob Thornton is mesmerising as an ‘eating, drinking, sh***ing, f***ing Santa Claus’. This is not one for the kids! Thornton’s Willie T. Soke is a professional thief who, with his dwarf assistant, get jobs as a grotto Santa and Elf in shopping malls during the festive season so as to case the place and rob it…but this time is different. Soake’s degeneracy has become a serious liability, and his instability and vulgar sexual exploits catch the attention of John Ritter’s mall manager and Bernie Mac’s security chief. Soake is spiralling out of control, but perhaps a romantic relationship with Lauren Graham’s barmaid and a chance encounter with a vulnerable young boy (to whom Soake becomes the least appropriate father-figure) might just be his salvation, and teach him the spirit of Christmas. The script is jet-black funny, and all the performances are spot on – although this is entirely Thornton’s film to shine in. Lewd, rude, and crude, but with a heart of gold (deep down under all the effing and jeffing), this film is the perfect antidote for those who find the jollity of the festive season a little twee.

3. The Holiday

A couple, wrapped up in winter clothes, flirt with each other.

This film has Jude Law in it. This ought to be enough to commend it to you, but I’ll go further. This film has Jude Law playing a jumper-wearing widowed single-dad, who can turn the humble napkin into a delightful children’s entertainment, and who gives smouldering glances across a crowded pub. Before you all rush out to watch it, let me finish the blurb. Cameron Diaz and Kate Winslett are two women, unlucky in love, who decide to swap homes for the Christmas holiday. Winslett is escaping a toxic infatuation and finds solace in a friendship with a nonagenarian scriptwriter from the Golden Age of Hollywood, and a possible romance with Jack Black (giving a genuinely restrained and enjoyable performance). Workaholic Diaz is desperate to learn how to switch-off, relax, and maybe give love a chance. She finds solace in…Jude Law’s many lovely jumpers and smouldering glances. This is not a film to be described but experienced. Its camp and frothy and silly, but its also just really lovely and gets the tears going every time. If my recommendation isn’t enough, listen to my wife – watch this film over Christmas!

2. The Muppet Christmas Carol

Kermit, a frog talks to rats dressed as Victorian children.

It’s a well-known fact that you can’t improve upon the indominable prose of Charles Dickens…WRONG! Dickens made the fatal error of not putting Muppets into his story. Rizzo and Gonzo take on the role of narrators of the story, Kermit does a sparkling turn as Bob Cratchit, and Michael Cain stars as the best on screen iteration of Scrooge (go on, fight me on this!). It’s the well-worn story brought to life by glorious songs – every year I start to sing “Tis the season to be jolly and joyous” to myself – a side-splitting script, and a clear and tender reverence for the original story and its central message. I defy anyone, child or adult, to sit through to the end this wonderful film and not want to keep Christmas in their heart every day. If you don’t like this film then I can only guess that you’ll be visited by ‘Marley and Marley, WOOOOOOOOOOA’!

1. Love Actually

Richard Curtis is my favourite director. Every film of his, however flawed (and there a several flaws in Love Actually), is so warm-hearted and good-natured that I can’t help but love them. Love Actually is Curtis firing on all cylinder: a painfully funny script, an ensemble cast of Britain’s finest talent, and a score that plays your emotions like a fiddle. A series of interconnecting love stories – love found, love lost, unrequited love, misdirected love – playing out in the run-up to Christmas, this film will not fail to put a tear in your eye and smile on your face. At times it’s a little too ‘laddy’ – I’m looking at you American sexcapade storyline – and the fact that all these people live in gorgeous houses in Wandsworth in spite of doing no discernible work is infuriating, but the fact that it is number one on this list in spirt of this is mark of just how strong a film it is. The cast list alone puts it at the top: Hugh Grant, Colin Firth, Alan Rickman, Liam Neeson, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Bill Nighy, Rowan Atkinson popping in for a bit…EMMA THOMPSON! The raw power of Emma Thompson quietly weeping as she listens to Joni Mitchell and contemplates the implosion of her marriage is stunning to behold. At its heart, it is a simple Richard Curtis film; it wants the viewer to relax in the beautiful spectacle of love, and to know that they are loved. I love Love Actually, and Love Actually loves me.

EMMA THOMPSON!

Essay

Art

Culture

Film & TV

Politics

Time

1 January 2025

5 min read

Symbols in culture – the interface between the Seen and the Unseen

Open your eyes.

Theodore Brun

Theodore is author of the historical fiction series The Wanderer Chronicles.

an all seeing eye hovers above a renaissance style picture of the supper at Emmaus.

Pontormo, via Wikimedia Commons.

As December gives way to January, we become conscious of time rolling on from one year into the next.

The moment is often marked by that most famous image of the New Year: the Roman god Janus standing sentinel at the threshold; two-faced, gazing back into the past, but also forwards into the future.

The double-faced god is a striking symbol to depict this interface of time. But we also often find symbols at another important interface: the place where the Seen meets the Unseen.

Symbols have always existed at this touch-point - between the spiritual and the material. We might even say between heaven and earth. Symbols possess a power which goes beyond the strictly rational. They are more than their constituent parts.

In the moment when Jesus effectively instituted the church, he tells his disciple Peter: “Behold, I give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” Here, Jesus not only uses symbolic language with his image of the key, he also assigns Peter (and so the church) a divinely-appointed role: to stand there at this threshold between the seen and the unseen, and to have an effect.

The mission then, to occupy and influence this frontier between both realms, is significant. It’s worth considering – especially at this liminal time of year - what a culture’s symbols say about its direction of travel. What are the symbols that saturate our conscious and unconscious world? What effect are they intended to have by their creators? What influence do they actually have in the seen and unseen?

Our culture is saturated with symbols that were always meant to exert influence in the unseen. Some consciously; other maybe less so.

The notion that symbols act on reality is not a merely Christian concept. Far from it. In many cultures, the origins of written communication have often been interwoven with both mystery and magic. The futhark, for example – the basis of the Old Norse runic alphabet in Scandinavia – developed directly out of shamanistic practices. In a word: witchcraft. Certain symbols were graven into material objects in order to have a specific effect. A rune for protection carved into the haft of a warrior’s axe; a rune for fertility on a woman’s comb or belt. Symbols to curse; symbols to bless. All intended to manipulate the reality around them. Effectively they acted as a kind of spell.

Roll the wheel of history forward a bit and we see the cross itself became a powerful symbol across the developing civilizations of the world, especially in Europe. Making the sign of the cross became synonymous with an invocation of God’s blessing or else protection against some evil. An outcome all the more extraordinary when one considers the origin of its use – a shameful incident of execution, standing on a lonely hill.

Similarly, the Crescent represents one of the great symbols of history, often in antagonism with the Cross. Think of the symbolic reversals still visible in the architecture of some parts of Spain. When the Iberian peninsula fell to Moorish conquest in the early eight century, the cross was torn down, all symbols of Christian faith effaced, only to return eight centuries later with the Reconquista. Today, you can see still the Cross surmounted on clearly Moorish architecture, a visible sign of those historic conflicts.

Such warring symbols of unseen spiritual realities are hardly consigned to the history books. Witness perhaps the most live example playing out all across the cities of Europe. The Star of David opposed and disdained by those waving black, green, red and white flags.

Nor is the clash of symbols simply a matter between the great religions of the world. The rainbow flag represents a certain positioning within the realm of the unseen wherever it is planted. In other contexts, our culture is saturated with symbols that were always meant to exert influence in the unseen. Some consciously; other maybe less so.

Apple’s ‘apple’ is not just an apple. It is an apple with a bite taken out of it. Elsewhere, symbolic representations of devil horns proliferate – to be expected on heavy metal t-shirts and album covers; perhaps less so throughout myriad children’s TV shows and movies across our streaming channels. Yet they are there.

The ‘One-Eye’ symbol has been associated variously with freemasonry, Luciferanism, Satanism and the occult. It appears in anything from pop videos to movie posters to political protest logos (“Just Stop Oil” anyone?). Even a ubiquitous pose-for-camera for celebrity photo-shoots. Once you clock it, you’d amazed how prevalent this symbol is across our culture.

Does it signify anything? Or nothing at all?

You have to assume that the creators of such symbols don’t include them by accident. Some are hidden in plain sight; others are brazen and bold. Either way, they are meant to be there. But why?

Symbols have always been used in the casting of spells. These days, we give so much head space to the consumption of culture, myriad symbols flashing in and out of our consciousness as we scroll ever onward, have we any idea what spells we are subjecting ourselves to – irrespective of whether we believe they are effective or not?

Against such murkiness, perhaps this season of Christmas rolling into the New Year is a good time to consider what some might consider the ultimate symbol appearing in our reality of the Seen: the Incarnation.

In a way, Christ identified himself as the visible interface between the seen and the unseen when he said: Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.

And yet, the Incarnation also transcends the mere symbolic. Yes, Christ points to an unseen reality, but he is also the ‘thing’ itself. He is both Seen and Unseen in one. Not a symbol pointing to something else, but the thing to which all symbols ultimately point: the central reality in the universe where God and creation meet.

Join with us - Behind the Seen

Seen & Unseen is free for everyone and is made possible through the generosity of our amazing community of supporters.

If you’re enjoying Seen & Unseen, would you consider making a gift towards our work?

Alongside other benefits (book discounts etc.), you’ll receive an extra fortnightly email from me sharing what I’m reading and my reflections on the ideas that are shaping our times.

Graham Tomlin

Editor-in-Chief

Find out more and sign up