Harry Potter Movie 5
Jul. 14th, 2007 02:32 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
timepiececlockWoot! That was a fun movie-going experience. This is only the third movie I've actually seen in theaters, and so far my favorite HP theater experience. It was the most *fun* to watch, the most tense and exciting, though I have to say I still think the third film, Azkaban, was the best-made. This episode was not without its flaws, but I think it's been by far the most fun to watch.
Why? Because it was a movie. It wasn't a book on screen. It was a movie in its own right-- the most starkly different film of the series yet, in multiple ways and levels: tone, theme, mood, imagery, maturity, violence, and ambition. This one cut huge swaths out of the book, paring it down until it wasn't a story about the student year at Hogwarts, or Harry's friendships, or the wizarding world. This was a movie about Harry. Just Harry.
A disproportionate number of scenes were done in close-up; this is noticeable right away and just as immediate in its effect. We stay with Harry's perspective through the whole film, very often right in his head, seeing through his eyes or as if we rode on his shoulder. This makes for a tightly wound visual thematic device that, while it leaves room for little else in plot, nevertheless makes the exciting parts that much tenser and stronger.
And, as in the fifth book, Harry is an Angry Young Man, oh yes he is. What I liked about the movie, that I didn't get from the book, was that in the film, all Harry's anger is seen as a direct result of the previous events, a combination of years of stress with a kind of post-traumatic stress from both Cedric's death and the Dementor attack that opens the fifth film. All through the movie Harry is never given the chance to talk to the people he needs to talk to, and all the fear and anger just builds and builds. From what I remember of the book, a lot of his anger was an extension of Voldemort's remote mental influence. In the movie, all Harry's anger comes from the just plain shitty happenings of his recent life. It feels a simpler, more logical explanation and a smoother transition in the movie than I remember from reading all those caps-locked sentences in the book.
There's a lot to dislike, here, if you're a hardcore HP fan. I won't kid: things get cut, things get added, things go differently even if the end result is the same. I'm a fan of the idea of the books more than the books themselves (oh JKR, if only your prose could catch up to your imagination, what an epic this would be), so I'm fine if they chop it to hell as long as the spirit of the story carries through. And that's what you've got here: a wildly different take on HP, where the writer and director stopped trying to make the book into the movie and just made a movie to stand on its own. And even though this story is a placeholder for future battles, a mere tease, as a movie it rocks.
I think one of the aspects I liked was that this movie stripped away all the glamour of the wizarding world. A few little tricks here and there, but even the fantastical was something easily used in the context of war: an ear to spy, a firework to explode, a message to burn. The plain fact is this school creates wizards and witches, not carpenters and tailors. These kids are being trained and even bred to do dangerous things, and this movie takes the kids from the protection of the school and its illusion of safety, a safety that it seems never truly existed except in the innocent minds of the students themselves.
It's not all fun and games. It's not all pretty lights and party tricks. It's power. It's war.
There were some flaws in the film-- little ones and a couple big ones (namely the pacing in the very end)-- but all you need to know is that this is a cool movie and you should see it in theaters. Luna was perfect, Sirius was good, the thestrals were neat, Harry's hair wasn't stupid anymore, and some of the wizard fighting was downright awesome.
I wish we'd seen more of the Weasleys' grand exit. I want the hallway swamp, the entire student body under siege of mayhem.
The arrivals of the Death Eaters and the Order members was just freaking cool. The swooping swirling tendrils as the Order members apparated in with swirling white flashes and tendrils of magic, the way the Death Eaters fwooped up and away with the same swirl, this time of dark blackness instead of light and power.
When the shelves holding the precious prophecy spheres started to fall over, all I could think was, "Those were some horribly made shelves! Whoever made those shelves so they'd just fall over like that did a seriously crap-ass job." This is what Habitat For Humanity and NCCC has done to me.
I liked the opening scene much better in this movie than in the others. Right off the bat, it feels different. No time wasted on introductions: here is the kid with the dead parents, the kid who can't sleep anymore because of terrors, the kid who is being mocked for his pain, and here, ladies and gentlemen, are the creatures sent to murder him.
Why? Because it was a movie. It wasn't a book on screen. It was a movie in its own right-- the most starkly different film of the series yet, in multiple ways and levels: tone, theme, mood, imagery, maturity, violence, and ambition. This one cut huge swaths out of the book, paring it down until it wasn't a story about the student year at Hogwarts, or Harry's friendships, or the wizarding world. This was a movie about Harry. Just Harry.
A disproportionate number of scenes were done in close-up; this is noticeable right away and just as immediate in its effect. We stay with Harry's perspective through the whole film, very often right in his head, seeing through his eyes or as if we rode on his shoulder. This makes for a tightly wound visual thematic device that, while it leaves room for little else in plot, nevertheless makes the exciting parts that much tenser and stronger.
And, as in the fifth book, Harry is an Angry Young Man, oh yes he is. What I liked about the movie, that I didn't get from the book, was that in the film, all Harry's anger is seen as a direct result of the previous events, a combination of years of stress with a kind of post-traumatic stress from both Cedric's death and the Dementor attack that opens the fifth film. All through the movie Harry is never given the chance to talk to the people he needs to talk to, and all the fear and anger just builds and builds. From what I remember of the book, a lot of his anger was an extension of Voldemort's remote mental influence. In the movie, all Harry's anger comes from the just plain shitty happenings of his recent life. It feels a simpler, more logical explanation and a smoother transition in the movie than I remember from reading all those caps-locked sentences in the book.
There's a lot to dislike, here, if you're a hardcore HP fan. I won't kid: things get cut, things get added, things go differently even if the end result is the same. I'm a fan of the idea of the books more than the books themselves (oh JKR, if only your prose could catch up to your imagination, what an epic this would be), so I'm fine if they chop it to hell as long as the spirit of the story carries through. And that's what you've got here: a wildly different take on HP, where the writer and director stopped trying to make the book into the movie and just made a movie to stand on its own. And even though this story is a placeholder for future battles, a mere tease, as a movie it rocks.
I think one of the aspects I liked was that this movie stripped away all the glamour of the wizarding world. A few little tricks here and there, but even the fantastical was something easily used in the context of war: an ear to spy, a firework to explode, a message to burn. The plain fact is this school creates wizards and witches, not carpenters and tailors. These kids are being trained and even bred to do dangerous things, and this movie takes the kids from the protection of the school and its illusion of safety, a safety that it seems never truly existed except in the innocent minds of the students themselves.
It's not all fun and games. It's not all pretty lights and party tricks. It's power. It's war.
There were some flaws in the film-- little ones and a couple big ones (namely the pacing in the very end)-- but all you need to know is that this is a cool movie and you should see it in theaters. Luna was perfect, Sirius was good, the thestrals were neat, Harry's hair wasn't stupid anymore, and some of the wizard fighting was downright awesome.
I wish we'd seen more of the Weasleys' grand exit. I want the hallway swamp, the entire student body under siege of mayhem.
The arrivals of the Death Eaters and the Order members was just freaking cool. The swooping swirling tendrils as the Order members apparated in with swirling white flashes and tendrils of magic, the way the Death Eaters fwooped up and away with the same swirl, this time of dark blackness instead of light and power.
When the shelves holding the precious prophecy spheres started to fall over, all I could think was, "Those were some horribly made shelves! Whoever made those shelves so they'd just fall over like that did a seriously crap-ass job." This is what Habitat For Humanity and NCCC has done to me.
I liked the opening scene much better in this movie than in the others. Right off the bat, it feels different. No time wasted on introductions: here is the kid with the dead parents, the kid who can't sleep anymore because of terrors, the kid who is being mocked for his pain, and here, ladies and gentlemen, are the creatures sent to murder him.
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no subject
Date: 2007-07-14 08:41 am (UTC)Gah. Well said.
I usually pass on the HP movies, but you've convinced me to go after this one. Thanks.
no subject
Date: 2007-07-14 08:58 am (UTC)Have you read the books? Because they keep the detention-torture scene, and even expand on it a little. Which is pretty damn cool, and was the most creepy thing about the 5th book.
no subject
Date: 2007-07-14 09:12 am (UTC)I came into the fandom through fanfic. Then I tried to read the books and couldn't bring myself to slog through Rowling's writing. ((shudder)) I've heard tell of the torture scene, though, and read it re-written as a flashback scene or suchlike in various fanfics.
Look forward to seeing HP done as a really good example of a particular form of storytelling, instead of as an awesome story reinterpreted by fans, or seen through
mudpainfully bad, adjective-laden prose.Speaking of fan reinterpretations, you've probably seen the really popular HP vid The Boy Was A Puppet, but I just wanted to mention it 'cause it seems to have a very similar tone to HP5, and you're description totally sent me off to re-watch it.
no subject
Date: 2007-07-14 09:13 am (UTC)I felt strangely sad, yet deviant. ;)
no subject
Date: 2007-07-14 09:25 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-07-14 12:10 pm (UTC)And one of the things I loved is how many flashbacks we got to the previous films, so you really get the sense that it's all about how Harry's life really has been so crap, except for things like his friends and Dumbledore.
And how friggin' awesome was the Dumbledore-Voldemort fight???
no subject
Date: 2007-07-15 04:44 pm (UTC)I'm very curious about the next movie-- I bet like LOTR, they're going to write the 6th and 7th movies from the broader perspective of the books' conclusion, or at least they would if they were smart. They're not limited to the events of one book; they can write the last two films by lifting the most relevant events from both of the final books, and not necessarily in order. That will make the last two movies stronger i think, removing a very limiting aspect of adapting from a book series.
no subject
Date: 2007-07-15 04:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-07-15 06:09 pm (UTC)My main problem was the pacing in the end. The fourth one might not have been as strong as this one, movie- and acting-wise, but that scene in the graveyard got me, whereas the end of this movie sped through the emotionally striking parts of the end (Sirius, and Harry, when being possessed by Voldemort right after Sirius died, is not going to be in a forgiving, full-of-pity mood. I just couldn't buy that) when it could have added a few more minutes without anyone really noticing and taken its time with what's really the most important part (especially going with the whole "Harry is pissed because of the recent shit that's been going on in his life on top of all the old shit" idea, because Sirius's death is the pinnacle of that). So, while I liked this one, it still doesn't beat the fourth one in my book.
no subject
Date: 2007-07-15 10:33 pm (UTC)it was clearly a cinematic presentation of the books. It struck that balance much more closely than the others have, I think.
Definitely. This was the first one, I think, that really said "screw the source material" and went full-speed-ahead with the spirit of the book if not the precise details. For better or worse.
I was disappointed by the pace at the end, too. Although the entire movie went at a good, fast clip, it went too fast at the end. I was disappointed particularly by Harry's conversation with Dumbledore. In the movie it was a mood-resolution thing, but in the book it was pure exposition: illuminating and necessary. Added to that we didn't get to see Harry grieve for Sirius.
no subject
Date: 2007-07-16 04:15 am (UTC)The lack of grieving for Sirius was what got me the most, because they've barely had time to cram him into the movies to start with (especially his and Harry's relationship being developed in...three scenes? total?), and not giving Harry time to grieve doesn't give us time to absorb the fact that this kind of meant something. *is bothered*