Fear the grime, not the Grim!

[chthonia9]

I have deeply conflicting feelings about this film.

I saw it in a sold-out family-owned cinema with a wonderful audience 
who laughed and cheered at all the right places, and I loved every 
minute of it.  Yes, there were things that I missed – the old 
locations; Harry asking Lupin how he knew how to work the map; the 
explanation of who made the map (though I can accept the argument 
that several posters have made about that not really being 
necessary); Hermione being stressed; and Draco, well, not whimpering –
 but these were more than outweighed by what they did well.

The acting was improved; the Marauder's Map was simply awesome (and 
using it for the credits was inspired), as was Buckbeak; the Knight 
Bus was as crazy as it was in the book; the final scene with the 
Dementors and Prongs was visually stunning; and the Divination 
Classroom set was perfect – I'd never really pictured it in the book, 
and having it on tiers like that made complete sense.  (Does anyone 
know where the staircase leading to it was filmed, by the way?)  Even 
the script seemed less clunky than in the previous movies, and I 
thought the way they changed it in the Shrieking Shack to make it 
seem that Sirius and Lupin were going to kill Harry was a good 
adaptation to the movie medium.

What really stood out for me, though, was the cinematography and the 
symbolism (and no, I *don't* mean the opening scene ;)  The way the 
camera dove into Harry's eye as he was fainting
 the close-up of 
Lupin's eye transforming
 the snowy owl swooping down into the 
suddenly-snowy valley
 that light-after-darkness shot of the snow 
melting off the snowdrop
 Harry's moment of pure exhilaration when 
riding Buckbeak
 as someone else has said, at that moment he is free 
from the Dursleys, from Malfoy, from the worry of Sirius, from the 
rules that keep him bound to the school when everyone else is able to 
visit Hogsmeade.  It worked perfectly for me, especially with 
Buckbeak showing the same joy by trailing his talon in the water.

I was also impressed by the way everything froze as the Dementors 
approached – it really worked as a visual equivalent of the feelings 
they induce in the book, so that in the Quidditch scene we could have 
the same gradual awareness of their presence that Harry did, and it 
also made an effective build-up to their appearance by the lake. And 
the constant subtle references to time – that guy in the pub reading 
Steven Hawking's book (though I did think it looked a bit odd to see 
a Muggle book there), the shot of Harry behind the clock face, the 
massive pendulum (I was half-way through the movie before I twigged 
to its connection with the time-travel theme) and, of course, the 
ticking in the time-turner scene.

However, I'm left feeling rather
 empty, rather as I did when I 
resurfaced from OotP and felt it slipping through my mental fingers.  
Perhaps that's because – as others have said – there was more 
emphasis on plot and witty dialogue and artistry than on 
characterisation.  Or perhaps it's just a sign that what I *really* 
love about the Potterverse is not so much the source material (much 
as I love the books and the characters), but the community that has 
grown up around it.  

I knew the books reasonably well when I saw the first two movies, but 
it was the CoS movie that brought me into the fandom.  Since then 
I've learned to become obsessive about small details through spending 
far too much time reading and writing fanfic.  I would have expected 
that to make me more annoyed about the things they changed in the 
film, but oddly enough I think it made it easier for me to accept 
them.  I've read a number of beautifully written HP fanfics that have 
a very dark tone, so the feel of Cuaron's take on the Potterverse was 
not as much of a shock to me as I suspect it would have done had I 
only known JKR's work.

But ultimately, what disappoints me about the film is that it does 
feel more like fanfic than canon.  There were scenes - such as the 
train rattling Harry's room at the Leaky Cauldron; the boys' antics 
with the animal-sweets, seen through lashing rain; the brightness of 
Harry's wand in the dark corridor (and I loved the paintings moaning 
about not being able to sleep!) – that made me feel I was *there* in 
a way the other movies didn't.  Yes, I was there – but `there' wasn't 
always the world of JK Rowling that I've come to love.

Three reasons for this, I think:

1) The change in location
So many images in the first film were exactly how I'd imagined them.  
Alnwick castle made a good Hogwarts. Glencoe was an impressive 
settling, and perhaps this new vision of Hogwarts might have worked 
if the other hadn't become embedded, but – having established the 
look of the place – why change it?  They didn't change the actors who 
play the characters (well, not the major ones) – why do they think 
that continuity of the locations that `play' the places is less 
important?

2) The clothes
I was apprehensive about this ever since I saw the first publicity 
pics.  It didn't bother me as much as I'd feared while I was actually 
watching the film, but I think it did subconsciously affect my 
response.  There was so much time when the characters were shown not 
looking like wizards that it took a lot of the magic away for me.  I 
expect that was the intention, to give us the sense that these were 
normal people and their lives were not focussed on magic but on the 
same struggles with self and others that we all face.  Fair enough, 
it's an interesting interpretation – but in JKR's world, wizards wear 
robes, just as they carry wands and ride broomsticks.  It's all part 
of the way she's drawing on the stereotypical images of witches and 
wizards and giving them a little humorous twist.

3) The *dirt*
Yes, the train rattling past the Leaky Cauldron gave a powerful sense 
of place, but in the book Harry's room felt cozy ("a comfortable-
looking bed, some highly polished oak furniture, a cheerfully 
crackling fire"), a safe haven after his flight from his relatives, 
the wizarding authorities and that creepily mysterious black dog.  I 
suppose the grim surroundings were supposed to be symbolic of a world 
that suddenly seems more difficult, but for me that made the darkness 
inevitable, whereas what I respect about the books is that they bring 
the reader into a world that looks bright and safe on the surface but 
gradually reveal that to be an illusion.  The bright scenes in this 
film (the Hippogriff lesson, Dumbledore's welcoming speech) stood out 
like beacons of hope in the darkness, but I can't help feeling that 
the graininess of the corridor-at-night scene and the terror of the 
Dementor on the train would have been even more effective had they 
contrasted strongly with a film and a castle that was light and 
welcoming in the daytime.

And, yuck, did anyone else notice the yellowing grimy patches on the 
walls of the train carriages?  Or the filthy state of Hermione's pink 
top?  (perhaps from the Whomping Willow, but I don't recall her 
rolling in the dirt)  Several posters have praised the film for its 
depiction of magic as an unremarkable feature of everyday life.  I 
heartily agree – but it *is* a feature of everyday life in the 
Potterverse.  They *do* have cleaning and repairing spells.  Magic is 
their technology – if Cuaron was making it look run-down to depict a 
non-technological world as realistic, then it is a cliché unworthy of 
the brilliance of so much of the film.

The Potterverse is not safe.  But nor is it squalid.


Having said all that, I remain deeply impressed by the film.  I saw 
it twice within 48 hours and was enthralled both times, whereas I saw 
CoS for the second time after a gap of three weeks and found myself 
getting bored in the second half.  I loved the soundtrack to PoA – I 
don't think I even remembered the one for CoS. This movie had depth 
and beauty.  I just wish it could have had more of a canon feel.

There seems to have been a dichotomy set up by some previous posters: 
Columbus' slavish adherence to the books vs Cuaron's artistry.  I 
really hope that it is a false dichotomy, that it *is* possible to 
make a film that is intelligent and beautiful and also faithful to 
the feel as well as the themes of the books – and that one, if not 
all, of the future directors will be willing and able to make it 
happen.

~Chthonia~

(Resurfacing in honour of the new movie, with apologies if anyone is 
offended by the length of this post)