In this, the seventh unveiling of the saga, the creepy undercurrents of the past few films — in particular, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince — are brought towards a near-symphonic climax. The ascendancy of Voldemort and the Death-Eaters stains the landscape and the three friends, Harry, Ron and Hermione, are cast adrift in a perilous world where terrifying apparitions contend with them at every turn. Part 2 is scheduled for release next year, in 3D, but here the look is grainier, darker — and sexier, since the leads are teens now and seem to have escaped from the Twilight franchise.
If none of that makes sense, you are probably one of the few people who has not followed JK Rowling’s sequential tales of the boy wizard and his boarding school chums. Harry is now definitively “the chosen one” and the trio (Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint and Emma Watson) are on a quest to find and destroy the remaining fragments of the Dark Lord’s soul (the Horcruxes) before he attains immortality and rules the visible and invisible worlds forever.
Perhaps you think this sounds like Tolkien, CS Lewis and even the Star Wars universe. Of course it does — but that’s another story. And now that Rowling has outed herself as a Christian, many suspect that Harry Potter is an extended parable concerned with the God who must die. This much is true: Harry doesn’t embrace his fate. You could even say that Hermione is his Magdalene — she and Harry are shown in one scene sinuously entwined, provoking Ron’s intense, hormonal jealousy.
The kissy episodes (joyous for the girls in the audience) occur when the three make their way through a desolate wilderness, inadequately described as a teenage camping trip.
The film (which is 147 minutes long) is slow and moody; but this, I reckon, gives it a depth not seen before, and which has its own magical qualities. It’s worth seeing from that point of view, though it may be embarrassingly reminiscent of how you felt about those murky cuddles at parties.
The magic is not childish. There is no Platform 9¾ from which the Hogwarts train leaves for the school; no sumptuous banquets summoned with a spell; no Quidditch matches; and the old fruity headmaster, Albus Dumbledore, is dead, though his influence lingers. A number of Harry’s friends and creatures die as well, which could be distressing to many. Hedwig the owl succumbs early.
The film is tricked out with a huge range of English actors (see shaded box on this page), though few have the chance to do much before they are swept aside by events and what appear to be distinct continuity lapses. You have to wait for the intrusion of jealousy and the spectacular lightning-bolt-style clashes. Ralph Fiennes as Voldemort has a sinister impact, while Radcliffe for the first time shows the shadow of bewildering maturity in his sorrowful features.
Among the institutions infiltrated by evil is the Ministry of Magic, which here resembles nothing so much as one of George Orwell’s ministries in Nineteen Eighty-Four, another overtly adult implication.
There are moments when Deathly Hallows hardly seems to be a children’s film at all: just as Sauron in Lord of the Rings evolved into a monstrous, spreading corruption of the landscape, the confrontation of good and evil reveals itself as a contestation of elemental forces. The final film could cap them all.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1
Directed by David Yates
Lead roles:
Daniel Radcliffe
Rupert Grint
Emma Watson
Bonnie Wright
Ralph Fiennes
Helena Bonham Carter
Jim Broadbent
Alan Rickman
Michael Gambon
Brendan Gleeson
Robbie Coltrane
