Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince (2009)
What a sure-handed opening! I'm talking about the Millennium Bridge, along with Harry and the attractive waitress down in the Underground. Darkness and enmity, juxtaposed with and countered by youthful hopefulness. The special effects are spectacular, but always subordinated to character and theme. (Unless they’re just being fun, which is another thing altogether.) Hilarious Horace turns out to be the way into death, and maybe transfiguration. It seems to me that in terms of technique and range and all, Mr. Radcliffe finally arrives. He's really good! He also finds these formidable old actor guys awaiting him. Broadbent pulls faces wonderfully; Gambon is effortlessly, practically, awe-inspiring.
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| In Mike Leigh, Another Year, 2010 |
(A discussion on a few more Broadbent films: http://dunfam.blogspot.com/2012/10/british-film-mike-leigh-and-jim.html)
From there great thing follows great thing, exquisite balance and judgment follows ex. b.& j. Look how comedy leads to poignancy (the smoochy Lavender episode giving way to the apotheosis of Miss Grainger; Slughorn's mugging to that simple, stirring speech about responsibility and honour). Look how direness creates depth of feeling. The conclusion to that Hogsmeade visit is right out of Asian horror, perfectly designed and executed, shocking. Unlike much Asian horror, however, it is also fearsome and pitiable. That burrow sequence is for the ages, I think: the trembling stasis of burgeoning romance giving way to utter malice (and stupendously kinetic cinema), then to mournful, exalting solidarity. The burrow burns, and everything good seems threatened, except that the real good is ultimately unaffected by the threat.
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| Kandinsky's Development in Brown, at the Barbican Bauhaus exhibit, 2012 |
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| WK/A good man... |
Etc., etc. The Inferi sequence is disappointing, because
it feels like it comes from another franchlse, or at least from the Chris
Columbus parts of this one. Too much,
and too little as a result. But the
aftermath! The combination of
melodramatic elements—Bellatrix—and rounding and rounded characters (watch
Malfoy become interesting, watch the effortlessly monumental Rickman) is really
effective, and really right. That plus
that equals actual tragedy, and Dumbledore’s demise is both devastating and
exalting. The event, rendered in that
setting, manifest in that brief indelible falling image, is as good, as
affecting, as mythical as Gandalf’s expiration in Moria.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, pt.
1 (2010)
The Empire
Strikes Back. This feels
interstitial. That’s acceptable, and you
don’t blame anyone, but it’s still interstitial. I’m recalling that the book felt similar,
which is to say that by this point the filmmakers are faithful, whatever JK might be
doing. There are tremendous things amid
the scatter. There is also that dubious Dobby episode. Recall Ginny, from the second book.
They haven’t earned this, and you feel to resent their piling it
on. Compare this dubiousness with the shattering minimalism
of the opening, in which Hermione removes herself from her parents’ lives. Same with the graveyard sequence. Peter Mullan!
That long camping section is pretty brave. Stasis, even temps mort in a blockbuster.
These kids dance to Nick Cave, do they?
The vaunted/abominated nudity sequence is actually an animated nudity sequence.
In other words, no actual exposure or objectification, but obvious technology to illustrate a concept. Is it unseemly? Sort of, as such actual things can actually be. Or, it's an
acknowledgment of a reality that isn’t only awful or sinful. Maybe it's appropriate for young people after all.
The Malfoys’ estate, as well as the Lovegood compound, reminds us of how tremendously designed this whole thing has been. One looks forward to the last episode, which will undoubtedly be just as all over the place. That is becoming decreasingly the point.
A terrific movie, I thought (also Windermere, this time 2005, w' Caitlin and Drew):
The Malfoys’ estate, as well as the Lovegood compound, reminds us of how tremendously designed this whole thing has been. One looks forward to the last episode, which will undoubtedly be just as all over the place. That is becoming decreasingly the point.
A terrific movie, I thought (also Windermere, this time 2005, w' Caitlin and Drew):
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows, pt.
2 (2011)
They start with a couple
of stately-paced dialogue scenes. These young actors are now on par with whatever distinguished Thesp that they might encounter, and the design and camera continues to be wildly
above reproach. And the whole world is
on tenterhooks, essentially a captive audience.
Still, that’s a kind of daring way to begin, isn’t it?
After the opening they all go to the
bank. The Hermione-as-Bellatrix thing is
kind of fun, both textually and intertextually.
(The later cleavage components might be slightly questionable.) Now we get that temple-of-doom-like roller coaster, some coat-turning,
and some pyrotechnics. Then it’s back to Hogwarts for a whole bunch of battling, which takes us all the way to that sort of sheepish,
slightly dubious epilogue.
That’s about it. What impresses here isn’t so much the movie
itself, though if you were splice it with the last one the result might feel
more balanced. There are shortcomings. The horcruxes may work as symbols—techno-devices, kids!—but in
terms of plot they kind of peter out.
The same goes for Molly W.’s long-anticipated victory over Bellatrix. Whiff! There’s a six films' worth of lead up, all for nothing. Also they might have redrafted Neville’s speech a
time or two more. But why niggle? I won't, anyway. As has been the case throughout this whole dynastic/nostalgic journey, what impresses are the
moments. These were once rooted in the
source material, but now they emerge just as much, and quite organically, from the films
themselves.
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| Edinburgh, from Calton Hill |
Can you picture them, or replace these with your own? The way that Ginny steps
in front of Harry in the banquet hall, or the way the adults join her,
magnificent seven-like, just a few minutes later. That exhilarating, electrifying moment when
Maggie Smith stops restraining herself.
(“Hez neem ez Voldemor-rt!”) That Rickman/Snape gets to act. Something
about his patronus, and where we’ve seen it before. Something about decency out of difficulty, or
impossibility. Harry’s whispering
reunion with his dead. His mother’s
Celtic countenance. His Narnia-like self
sacrifice. Dumbledore’s return, that
whole graceful, peaceful, sweetly painful scene. “You dear boy. You brave, brave man.”
So a few plot things, a
few motifs and mechanics have gone by the wayside. But these last bits remind and represent how
well Ms. Rowling and her offspring have done with her first, final, most
fundamental themes. They’re not that
unusual, though that’s not anything to reprove.
It’s not cliché, but the familiarity of archetype and all the great
moral systems. How tribulation and death
would seem to be antithetical to loyal friendship and abiding love. How they actually reinforce and deepen each
other. This has been an awful part of
the world’s history, and every individual must eventually pass through valleys
and shadows as well. What a thing, then,
to see those former children, now so big and on the brink of everything else,
stand in the ruins and look hopefully toward the future. It need hardly be said that all of our and
everyone else’s children shared furiously in the whole of this. You can ask yourself some questions. For instance, what if the whole world had followed Lloyd
Alexander like this? In the end, though, the result is the
same: them, plus us, plus all of our best efforts, equal sufficiency, even apotheosis. What a run!
