David Yates successfully guides the series to its conclusion in the grand finale to a series of films that have become a global phenomenon.
Any film viewing, especially of a film that does justice to its characters, is pregnant with the possibility of disappointment. As viewers we are constantly aware that all that awaits us at the end are titles. Our childlike urge to spend more time with the characters we’ve come to love must remain unrequited. This disappointment is only compounded with regard to Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2. The film brings to a close a decade long association (longer for those who have read the books) with the characters and universe J.K.Rowling created. With earlier film editions there was always an assurance that our familiar friends would return, even if in a more somber, brooding atmosphere. For those of us who already suffered through one set of withdrawal symptoms after the final book was released another set of symptoms await at the conclusion of this film. There are no more adventures for the boy wizard and his two friends. So, excited as we are to see David Yates take the series to its conclusion, we are entirely aware of the central theme of this film even before we enter the theaters – death.
David Yates wastes no time reminding us of the sadness surrounding the magical world when we last left. Voldemort (a wan, slit-nosed Ralph Fiennes) has in his possession the Elder wand he stole after desecrating the tomb of Albus Dumbledore (Michael Gambon). Dobby, everyone’s favorite house elf, now lies buried in the backyard of Bill Weasley’s beachside home where Harry, Ron, Hermione and Griphook the goblin plot their next move. Severus Snape (played by the human chameleon Alan Rickman) is now principal of Hogwarts, which seems less like the safe haven it once was and more like a military camp. We are reminded of the French school in Louis Malle’s Au revoir les enfants – the students who did return have all bid goodbye to their childhood by now. Snape stands at a vantage point, watching the Hogwarts courtyard as if overseeing the gloom that infiltrates everything and entirely aware of what lies in store. The film spends a great portion of its time inside Hogwarts as it well should, for after all this is where it all began. This was where we muggles, along with Harry and co, were initiated into the world of magic. And just like the snitch Harry is bequeathed by Dumbledore, it is Hogwarts that must open up and reveal its true splendor at the close.
There are no preliminaries at the beginning of the film, no ‘story-so-far’ to allow those unaware of the proceedings to catch up. Yates, quite rightly, assumes that one has no place watching this film if one does not know what is at stake and the film is all the better for it. The purposefully slow first part of Deathly Hallows left Yates with a lot of ground to cover and consequently he does increases the pace at which events unfold. Unlike in the book or the first movie, there is no time to recover from injuries and minimal graphical fanfare accompanies the destruction of Horcruxes that house pieces of Voldemort’s soul. Ideas occur instantaneously and are executed even quicker. Yates dispenses with a few details from Rowling’s book (it isn’t just Harry who is not interested in what transpired between Aberforth and Albus) and appropriates the parts that serve as emotional crests.
The heroics and humanity are not reserved solely for the boy who lived. Supporting characters, marginal and otherwise, all have their moments. Ron (a lovable Rupert Grint), who finally gets his on screen kiss with a Hermione (a suddenly buxom Emma Watson), is all of a sudden the wellspring of great ideas. (Intelligence it seems is transferable by kissing.) A suddenly confident Neville Longbottom, limp and all, is the one Gryffindor’s sword chooses to find in a moment of crisis. Hermione repels a werewolf who was feeding on Lavender Brown, a girl who she quite disliked for garnering Ron’ affections only two films ago. Even Molly Potter Weasley gets her fifteen seconds of fame with a ferocious duel against the cackling Bellatrix Lestrange (Helena Bonham Carter). Yates is aware that it is the triumphs of the little guys that a number of us are rooting for and gives them their day in the sun. But make no mistake this is Harry’s, more specifically Daniel Radcliffe’s, film. With the fate of the magical world on his shoulders, Radcliffe casts off some of the woodenness that adorned his face in the previous editions and holds his own, even against his more celebrated co-stars.
Despite all the overall pall of doom the film does make room for finer aspects of life. Upon the return of Harry, Seamus Finnegan sends out a message through Hogwarts stating ‘lightning has struck’ obviously referring to the scar on his forehead. The usually stately Minerva McGonnagall (Maggie Smith in a brief but poignant role) shivers in girlish delight after releasing Hogwarts’ stone warriors. The visual effects are for the most part excellent and it is entirely excusable that, despite being in a hurry, Harry and Luna are compelled to hover and watch a protective membrane envelope the school like pseudopodia. It is to Yates’ credit that this ‘stop and smell the roses’ moment situates itself in a rather frenetic part of the film. And it is the reason that a film that signals the end of the franchise will, as many elegiac dialogues in the film point out, live on in the hearts of fans everywhere.
P.S: An edited version of this review appears in today's City Express supplement of the New Indian Express. Link.
0 comments:
Post a Comment