HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS: PART 2 (David Yates 2011)

[Chris Knipp]

David Yates: HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS: PART 2
Review by Chris Knipp

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RALPH FIENNES AS LORD VOLDEMORT IN HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS PART 2

The last Harry Potter?

Harry Potter No. 8, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2, is, they say, the last Harry Potter film. It all ends, the posters say. And that means it's based on the last Harry Potter book. The author of the books, J.K.Rowling, says this is the end, and the signs are she had it planned from the beginning, or way back to the dim forgotten 1990's. For millions of fans this must be a moment tinged with sadness. Don't ask this review to assess the movie expertly. I'm not a Harry Potter person, and so you shouldn't ask me to do a thorough and proper evaluation of the last, or any, of the Harry Potter films. What does it matter, anyway, what I say? They, like the books, are a phenomenon. I cannot fully appreciate this popularity, because you really can't truly do so without having watched every film multiple times and read every page of the seven books. To be honest, I couldn't tell you for sure the difference between Scrmgeour (Bill Nihy, now departed, and by me, sorely missed) and Snape (Alan Rickman, a tad too campy for my taste, but nonetheless as essential to Harry Potter as young, now grown up, Daniel Radcliffe). Are Hermione (Emma Watson), Ron (Rupert Grint) and Harry (Daniel Radcliffe) a ménage à trois, as at some moments now seems? I have not read and never shall read Rowling's helpful pamphlets, "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them" and "Quidditch Through the Ages," and to be honest, I wouldn't want to.

But I can feel it -- the loyalty and passion of the fans. When I saw this film, in iMAx and 3D, in a packed first-night audience, there were ripples of applause that swept across the auditorium (I almost said "amphitheater") after a particularly good moment, as at the opera or the ballet. I felt that, and I can respect the grandeur of the concept -- and the solemn, epic quality of the later Harry Potter films. The earlier ones, while maybe laboring a little too much to explain the Hogwarts world and rules, may have been more fun. (Whether I might prefer Sweathogs to Hogwarts is a question better not asked.) Neither the filmmakers nor the author needs a review. The books have won many prizes and made their author, if not a billionaire (in dollars), at least is close enough not to matter (and she started out on welfare: what a story of literary private enterprise!). The audience is wide. The books weren't specifically written for children but appeal to them, and lots and lots of adults as well.

Rowling thought up the basic idea for her incredibly successful franchise on a four-hour train ride from Manchester to London. On that ride she came up with the basic story of Harry Potter, a young wizard, and his motley band of cohorts at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The first book went through many rejections before finally being accepted by a publisher, but it became a bestseller and the rest, as they say, is history. The fourth book, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, sold four million copies in the US in the first 48 hours after publication; the sixth book, nine million copies in the first 24 hours. The latter books of the seven have been the fastest selling books in history. They have reportedly turned a lot of kids to reading who were otherwise pulled away by other media.

The films followed naturally upon the books' wild popularity, and since there are seven Harry Potter books there would be that many movies, except that, either due to the complexity or simply to feed the blockbuster machine, the last novel was broken up into two film installments. With various writers involved, there have been four directors, Chris Columbus for the first two, Alfonso Cuarón for the third, Mike Newell for the fourth, and David Yates for the last four. It seems to me Columbus' approach may have been a little simplistic, and Cuarón a bit too dark and surreal. I don't know about Newell; but David Yates struck the right note and luckily has continued. The cast has included some of the best actors in Britain, among them Maggie Smith, Michael Gambon, John Hurt, Ciarán Hinds, Jim Broadbent, Emma Thompson, Robbie Coltrane, Gary Oldman, Tony Kirwood, and Tim Burton's colorful wife, Helena Bonham Carter, Ralph Fiennes, as the tortured white creature of evil Lord Voldemort, who has no nose -- and I know I'm missing some of the important Harry Potter regulars. I forgot matthew Lewis, who plays Harry Potter's brave and lowal friend Neville Longbottom, a character who strikes a decisive blow against Lord Voldemort. Nor have I mentioned by name the impressive albino dragon. The CGI in this movie is for the most part justifiable and original and well integrated into the whole. I particularly liked some very intriguing scenes of magical storerooms jammed with objects, including metal goblets. The skies in the last two Harry Potter films have been dramatic and awesome.

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What about iMax and 3D? I will never stop saying that 3D is a crude mistake and a silly throwback until a truly advanced and sophisticated version of it is developed. This time the glasses were huge, which worked well for iMax and made us all look like comic characters. A major problem remains that 3D glasses of all kinds are tinted gray. You don't want to see a movie through glasses, darkly, not even a black and white movie, which requires rich blacks and crisp pure whites. You certainly don't want to see colors dimmed down. However, the 3D in Deathly Hollows 2 was more seamless than much of the 3D I have seen. There were still exceptions, possibly due to iMax. Occasionally there was a halo around figures or heads, and when there was fast motion, it was sometimes a blur -- things that don't happen in so-called "2D". Needless to say, though, iMax lends itself to the grand clashes of good and evil that mark the final sequences of Deathly Hollows 2.

Earlier movies in the series were, as I mentioned, more fun -- and less lonely, and contained more humor and romance. But since the movie has set records at the box office already in its first weekend, the public is willing to pay to find out. This is the top grossing movie weekend ever, both in the US and abroad, and the filmmakers are going to be as reluctant to abandon this fan base as the fans are going to be to give up watching Harry Potter movies.

[oscar jubis]

I thoroughly enjoyed watching HPATDH2 with my son Dylan on Thursday at midnight. A lovely, reverent, deeply-moved crowd. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone was the first book read by people of a certain demographic. They have this special sense of having shared the path to maturity with the three principals. The series has given a whole generation something of an alternative to the nihilism, materialism, vulgarity, and cynicism present in many contemporary cultural products (the popularity of Lady Gaga also a positive development in my estimation). My psychologist brother believes that the key to the phenomenon is the element of spirituality in the narrative world created by Rowling. He thinks that the failure of organized religion to serve the spiritual needs of large groups of people has left a void that narrative art can fulfill when it possesses certain qualities and conjures a specific world-vision with verve and imagination.

Formally speaking, I think the films benefit from top-of-the-line production, a cast that could not be better, and an excellent sense of narrative pacing.The final film is perhaps the best in the series. Perhaps that is to be expected since it provides that magnificent feeling of closure that life denies us in our human condition of being in media res.

[Chris Knipp]

I can't confirm your generalizations about cynicism, Lady Gaga, or the failure of organized religion but I can agree on the quality of the films, the lovely audiences, and the sense many have of having grown up with the principals.

[cinemabon]

Harry Potter and the Deadly Hallows, Part II – directed by David Yates


Finally, it’s over. If you read the novels, it was over years ago. What you have here are the last few chapters of the final book that Warner Brothers didn’t want to squeeze into a four hour movie. Instead, they put up a prolonged battle sequence that takes up the majority of the film. This film/book ties up all the loose ends. Rowling throws everything in the soup. We see characters from all seven books, showing up in short little vignettes, some only having one or two lines with redundancy: “We’ll all be here for you.” Nice (he said sarcastically).

The whole Harry Potter phenomenon started with young English school girls who spread the news of this series by word of mouth. Rowling herself could never have imagined what would result. By the time book four rolled around, she was an international celebrity and movie deals were in the offering. She made the most important proviso that any author could make: if it had “Harry Potter” on it, she had final say, from products to spin offs to movie scripts. No author before or since ever cornered such a deal. Thanks to the people at Warner, the corporation of Harry Potter built and built until it has become an enterprise of its own, like Star Trek or Star Wars or James Bond or Batman or Spiderman. These properties are their own companies, made to sell their product to whoever will buy them.

The last film, “Harry Potter… ad naseum” is lost in this commercialism. Rowling wanted Harry to say goodbye to Hogwarts and move on. Where most people (avid readers) thought he would replace Dumbledore, Harry wanted nothing to do with the job. In his humble way, he only wanted the small house, the hot girl, and some kids, maybe. No castles, secret offices, or Elder wands for this wizard. Anyone who knows anything about the series knows what happens in the last film. The plot is a secret to no one because the book came out over three years ago! Harry confronts Voldemort. Harry defeats Voldemort. Hogwarts is left in ruin but rebuilds over time. Oh, and yes, some of the “beloved” characters die in the end. The end. The ride was fun but now it’s over and we can all go back to our lives. Or can we?

Will Rowling leave the property alone? Or will she resurrect the characters and start more books? Expelliairmus! (I’m trying to make it go away)

If you really didn’t read the books and you really want to see the end of the saga, then by all means go and see the movie. There are no battle sequences, no chase scenes, no explosions, and no magic. Oh, no, wait… I mean just the opposite. That’s all there is. My bad.

[oscar jubis]

The implication at the opening and closing of your post that if you have already read the books then viewing the films is superfluous (or redundant) pains my cinephilic heart.

[cinemabon]

Cinephalic?

[oscar jubis]

you mean cinephallic, right? Well...Not.

[tabuno]

As Chris implied in his first commentary, the first several movies in the series were more "fun" and that is what seemed to be so charming and appealing about youth and magic. The last, ending movie seems to have lost the character development and the moral dilemma so delicious found in earlier movies of the series (think Naria and Anne of Green Gables). The special effects seemed weak and there were various scenes that the effects were obviously incorporated into the movie, becoming a bit distracting in this day and age of high techology (this commentary being based on the 2D version). The basic plot seem to be pretty much good vs. evil and focused more on the basic fighting and action and less on the more emotive, substantive backdrop on earlier movies. Death strangely enough in this movie was handled with less emotional impact and deleted scenes that reduced the impact of the hurt and pain in a number of scenes.

The highpoint of the movie was Snape and his backstory and a credible if not as strong moral dilemma on the part of Harry Potter this time that begins to emerge in the last third of the movie. This last parting movie didn't seem very special in contrast to other fantasy movies out there like Lord of the Rings trilogy. This movie was decent enough, worth the movie, but the sneak preview audience (last Thursday evening) didn't seem to really come out all that euthiastic by the end and instead it received a polite and respectable but not overwhelming applause.

[cinemabon]

I know this thread is in regards to one film. However, I must put my comments into perspective, being an avid reader of the series and therefore have framed my review in the context of comparing apples and oranges, albeit they are both friut (ie books to movies).

What appealed to me about the series was how Rowling created this world by being very descriptive in her settings. This was a "place" oriented series: claustraphobic closets, castles with moving staircases, hidden train stations, flying motorcycles, pictures whose characters interacted with their living counterparts and food magically prepared by house elves. Unfortunately, by Book Four the magic began to fade. Rowling switched from having wonderful settings to plots driven by evil characters and over-handed dialogues, traditional fiction. The series lost its luster. So too did the films.

Having to top the last one, the films and the novels grew darker, more sinister, until Harry became less of an adventure and more a war horse dragging an overburdened cart filled with the trappings of Hogwarts and the magical community. In the last three books, when she began to kill off characters, and in a not so pleasant way, it became difficult for parents, and for children, to accommodate this death and destruction versus the wide-eyed sense of wonder we felt going to Hogwarts for the first time. Rowling felt this "turn to the dark side" a necessary part to the story. However, it spoiled the series for so many when she dumped these woes on us and made us mules to bear part of this emotional burden.

So too the films changed. We started with John Williams scores, Richard Harris' Dumbledore, and lots of humor at the expense of Snape's upturned nose. It was fun to poo-poo the too stern, too strict potions master. Making Voldemort the driving force in the series made us look beyong "Potter" at the real world instead: full of murder, mayhem, and rotten people who take advantage of innocent people with torture and killing. Gone were the glorious dinners in the magical dining room and three wonderful young wizards who used their wits to solve mysteries. Instead, we got pimples, heartache, and horror - hardly the stuff of "now good night, darling... sweet dreams." I had to stop reading the books at night, lest I give my son nightmares.

Novelists tend to look at the dark side of the world and try to encorporate that reality into their fantasy worlds. But the world is full of the awful. Turn on the news and you'll find plenty. How sad that we cannot find a venue for a brief escape, a world where such terror does not exist or a place filled with the hope of sunshine without the Hitler's or the Ivan's or the Pol Pot's. That is what we long to find... that is what we hope to find in a heaven or nirvana, but the world keeps telling us they don't exist. How sad we must whisk away the one hope of happiness is a world so full of its opposite.

[tabuno]

It's small wonder why Cinemabon is able to contribute mightily on this site with his insight and skillful use of the mighty (pen) word. NARIA was able to capture the wonder of childhood and at the same time place the epic battle of good and evil into the context of the adolescent perspective without destroying the hope and dreams of youth. Perhaps the main difference comes from the maturity and experience of the writers between C.S. Lewis and J.L. Rowling. What Rowling attempted on her first try was to incorporate the actual visceral and perhaps shocking transformative changes from childhood to adolscence without the wisdom and reflective experience of time and age to smooth out and explain and understand the changes that occur. It is like a an adult or sage attempting to smooth out the bumps along the way, like a director and a Merlin helping to reduce the turmoil and sometimes exaggerated black and white thinking and feelings that can occur with being a teenager. With Dumbledore's physical absence perhaps the vital piece of youthful security was overtaken by a much darker feelings of paranoia becoming a 1940s Hitler's landscape of horror that squeezed out the fun, a Orwellian 1984 for children.

[Johann]

?

I'm SO glad that this series is over.

[Chris Knipp]

Johann, you're probably far from the only one with that sentiment. As for the latter films being a disappointment, I never felt that. I have a sense of the growing richness of the stories -- and of the audience's perception of them, as well as a growing maturity of outlook in the main characters and in the movies themselves. I said the earlier ones were probably more fun. The last couple are obviously doom-ridden battles of good and evil. But that doesn't at all keep them from being grand and impressive films. They are so richly imagined, as films, that I would agree it's strange to say you don't need the movies if you've read the books. That's for each individual to decide. If you've read Jane Austen you may be able to live without seeing the Jane Austen flicks. But if you love Jane Austen, how can you resist watching them? One of the pleasures of Deathly Hallows 2 is watching a blockbuster that is so totally different from the Marvel Comics movies. This is such a different way of conceiving a blockbuster movie. For one thing, it's all so British.

I might agree with Oscar that it hurts to claim the books rule out seeing the films, but otherwise Cinemabon's much more knowledgeable posts are an indication if needed that I never have the last word on this site, and as I declared in this review, I'm a complete outsider when it comes to Harry Potter.

[Johann]

Harry Potter is a worldwide phenomenon and I won't trash it.
People grew up with it and have a serious connection to Rowling's creation.
I can't knock that.
The films are well made and the books are definitely well written.
I'm just all Harry-Pottered-Out.
(Amazing, considering I've only seen the first film & never read a book)

[Chris Knipp]

That out-of-touch-ness affected me even more in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Same problem, had not read the books, couldn't follow the movies, but with Harry Potter I could engage more and also sense the warmth of the fan base.

[Johann]

Ebert's review is favorable, saying that these films will be around a long time and that the ending leaves room for a sequel.
!

so maybe this series isn't over?

[cinemabon]

Chris brings up an important point about the way some films bring out an enhanced quality not present in certain novels. He mentions Jane Austen and in particular, "Pride and Prejudice." If you've ever read the novel, it hardly contains any description of setting at all. The "rich tapestry" of sets and costumes comes alive in any film or television adaptation of the drool and dry but witty story. This is the world of the set decorator and costume designer. It is their job to bring out the visual splendor of a period piece. No book can compete with that.

However, Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings" was a different kettle of fish. He never let up on showing us where his characters were or how they felt. To read Tolkien is to drift through a world of imagination, vividly described and very difficult to reproduce on film (which is why it took more than a half century and a change in technology to bring it about). Rowling tries in the "Potter" series to a less successful degree. At first she pours on setting like maple syrup and butter over hot pancakes, their lavish richness adding the necessary nuance to make the novel popular. In the last three novels, she relied more on character interaction (although Dumbledore's office was always a trip through detail and interest). Good versus evil is so overdone in everything. We've villains galore in nearly every character driven piece. I find it a writer's crutch. She'd run out of ideas.

As we grow, we change our view of the world. But just because we are adults, that doesn't mean we have to embrace the violent and dark to be balanced. Nor should we be ignorant of reality. In art, we try to express the world through visual interpretation. Where is reality in fantasy fiction? Forcing those little girls who made the novels a success to watch some teacher twist and turn, slowly being tortured and then devoured by a massive snake is some sort of cruel joke on reality that intrudes into our quaint world of cry baby plants, prankster house elves, and magical chocolate frogs. Who says we need to eat a healthy dose of bitters to keep it all balance? I say, phooey on that.

[Chris Knipp]

It might be fair to assume that Tolkien's books are of greater literary merit than Rowling's.

I may not have made my feelings about Jane Austen and movies quite clear. I tried to define what I think back in 2005 in a review (http://www.chrisknipp.com/writing/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=500) of Joe Wright's Pride and Prejudice. I said that much is enhanced, but most of the social subtleties of the novel are blurred. My essential point:

The irony -- there is one irony, though not in the movie -- is that you can't really make a movie of Jane Austen. Her books are easily visualized on film. Moviemakers can come up with the costumes and the sets. But her books aren't essentially visual. They're all about prose style, and the turns of phrase that make one think, sentences that flow gently and come down easy, catching you unawares so you may have to read them again, sentences that delineate the development of character through thought and experience with infinite clarity and subtlety. On screen, that development is there, but it's visual. It just happens. The camera just focuses on Ms. Knightley, thinking. But in Jane Austen it happens with words. Ultimately that isn't cinematic. So you can't make a Jane Austen movie without taking out the Jane Austen. Why do people do it, then? Well, people just like to make movies of her books, I guess -- and people like to watch them.

Obviously films bring qualities that books don't have, and vice versa. I have also argued that movies of Jane Austen's novels can never capture the qualities of her books, the subtleties of moral distinction and the ironies of her prose. And if those are the most essential qualities of Austen's novels, then the films miss out on something essential. But we will still want to see them, if we love Jane Austen and love movies. Watching Joe Wright's Pride and Prejudice is nothing like reading Jane Austen's novel, and reading her novel is nothing like watching a costume movie. The people in Jane Austen's novels aren't wearing costumes. They're wearing contemporary dress. And most of the time what they're wearing isn't even important, except that it's appropriate and fits their station in life and their personalities.

A lady flattered me by quoting that paragraph in a masters thesis (https://mospace.umsystem.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/10355/4608/research.pdf?sequence=3) about adaptation submitted the University of Missiouri and building some of her discussion on it -- I stated the point rather strongly.


Forcing those little girls who made the novels a success to watch some teacher twist and turn, slowly being tortured and then devoured by a massive snake is some sort of cruel joke on reality that intrudes into our quaint world of cry baby plants, prankster house elves, and magical chocolate frogs. Who says we need to eat a healthy dose of bitters to keep it all balance? I say, phooey on that.

I don't now about that; the little girls may have gorier imaginations than you are acknowledging. But you make a valid point: that some events described in books were not meant to be acted out in technicolor (and 3D, for what that's worth) on an iMax screen. Again, the experience of reading a book is very different.

[tabuno]

I much prefer the later BBC version of Pride and Prejudice (1995) directed by Simon Langton and its ability to bring to the visual and auditory screen Jane Austin's book because of its comprehensive fusion of both satisfying character development, timely and full plot sequences, and the set design, costumes, and ambiance. Much like Picnic At Hanging Rock (1975) directed by Peter Weir and its adaptation from Joan Lindsay book, these movies richly capture and integrate the blending of both character, plot, and envrionment into a balanced film experience. The last Harry Potter movie seems to have lost this balance and instead of maintaining its setting, environment, character, and plot, the movie instead descended into less than spectacular special effects that appeared at times separate and apart from the live action and setting, the action and more traditional plot storyline seemed to overwhelm the place and setting and magic to become more of a traditional action, adventure movie - almost as if Harry Potter unfortunately grew up socialized into the mainstream American movie standards and in doing so losing the original charm and magic of the series and what made it special. The growing up and maturity into the darkness argument doesn't wash because there is more that is lost in the evolution of this movie than mere developmental aging of the characters. The core personality and the nature of the movie even in its assumed evolution of the years, seemed to break from the essential nature of the characters and movies to become more stock characters rather than real characters that we loved before. Perhaps off all the characters that really evolved into a real authentic humanly portrayed character and the one that stands out as the most significant in the last movie was Snape...worthy of Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight (2008) or Mickey Rourke in The Wrestler (2008), though unfortunately Alan Rickman's character wasn't considered the primary character and thus unlikely to receive a best actor nomination.

[Chris Knipp]

The growing up and maturity into the darkness argument doesn't wash because there is more that is lost in the evolution of this movie than mere developmental aging of the characters. (tabuno)

That's an excellent argument you present there and I am not the one to refute it. As I've said, I am not a Harry Potter person. I am writing as a sort of appreciative outsider. You can consider me naive and misguided if you like. Definitely there is less fun and more Wagnerian Gotterdamerung but the grandeur impresses me and I can't believe that vast numbers of fans are dissatisfied when the last Harry Potter film has broken all global box office records. I personally don't see the falling off of quality you observe. It seems to me the francise was CGI-filled blockbuster material all the way from first to last, but at the same time has never lost its distinctive British feel and accent. It doesn't feel to me at any point like a typical American blockbuster movie like the Marvel productions. It's a series of British novels for young people with grandiose magic effects.

I much prefer the later BBC version of Pride and Prejudice (1995) directed by Simon Langton and its ability to bring to the visual and auditory screen Jane Austin's book because of its comprehensive fusion of both satisfying character development, timely and full plot sequences, and the set design, costumes, and ambiance. (tabuno)

I'm have little doubt you're right. I was basing my analysis of Wright's P&P purely on my knowledge of Austen's novels and the period. I've never been a fan since, having found Atonement overrated and The Soloist and Hanna a downhill arc. Yours was the view of a number of other IMDb "citizen" commentators in 2005 when I posted my review of the Joe Wright film. Kristin Spooner, the MA candidate who cited (https://mospace.umsystem.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/10355/4608/research.pdf?sequence=3)my IMDb review (and coined the term "citizen review" for IMDb users comments) said that


. . . the citizen reviews of Pride & Prejudice exhibit an even more pronounced tendency to cite one particular filmic adaptation of Austen’s novel in their comments, specifically Simon Langton’s miniseries adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, which was first aired by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) in 1995. In the sample of positive reviews that I explored for this chapter, many of them refer to the miniseries at some point, usually to acknowledge the quality of Langton’s adaptation but also to indicate that Wright’s film either equaled or surpassed that version.
As for Peter Weir he's a heck of a good mainstream director providing something distinctive on a host of topics, including The Last Wave,Gallipoli, Witness, ,Mosquito Coast, Dead Poets Society, and The Truman Show, to name my favorites. The Mosquito Coast is another good book adaptation by Weir. Have not read the Joan Lindsey novel but did read Paul Theoroux's.

[cinemabon]

The 1995 version of "Pride and Prejudice" is sooooo good (add "oooooo" to that), I bought it on Blu-ray and frequent the version (the blu-ray version shows it in widescreen, btw) whenever I want to "put on the dress!" (Not that I'm confessing to anything here) This is a guilty pleasure that "men" seldom get to express, the wish to be the protagonist. I recently watched "The King's Speech" again on my computer during vacation and was shocked to see Jennifer Ehle's name mentioned in the credits (the film reunited Firth and Ehle in the same production). Ehle as Elizabeth Bennett and Firth as Darcy are in the best version I have ever seen (having seen every version available on video). I'll probably have to drag it back out tonight and... no, I can't... I mustn't! ............... I WILL!