You are right, the quote I heard was from the director. I read the books a long time ago, but as I recall, the two main Christian parallels are where one child agrees to betray the rightful king, Aslan to the evil snow queen. Then there is the a very specific scene where the children are hiding as they watch the evil queen and her minions attack and kill Aslan, and he lets them. THe children don't understand how such a powerful creature like Aslan doesn't fight back. Then he late ends up rising from the dead.
As I said, I haven't read this book for nearly 15 years, so my recall is a little sketchy.
Bttt for later read. I really enjoyed both the Narnia and Tolkien books.