HARRY POTTER AND THE PRISONER OF AZKABAN ***
DIRECTED BY Alfonso Cuaron
STARRING Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, Emma Watson
US 2004 142 mins.
By Preston Wilder
BIG NEWS in Potter-land! Harry runs away from home (“Anywhere’s better than here!”). Ron says “Bloody hell” more than once. And Hermione… well, she’s blossomed, let me tell you. She’s practically a woman now. Oh my.
That’s right, folks, puberty and teenage rebellion hit Hogwarts in a big way – and, not coincidentally, Harry has to learn some more advanced magic if he’s to deal with Sirius Black (Gary Oldman), the escaped Prisoner of Azkaban.
Pretty soon those symbolic phallic wands – their use strictly regulated – are going to be waved around with wild abandon. The Potter producers know the score, and a new director has been hired for this third instalment: out (by mutual consent) goes Chris Columbus, best-known for family fun like Home Alone; in comes Alfonso Cuaron, whose most recent film was the exhilarating – and very sexy – teen comedy Y Tu Mama Tambien.
Has it worked? Not really. Box-office returns in the US have been disappointing for this new, ‘darker’ Harry (though it seems to be packing them in as usual in Cyprus). More importantly, the film tries for more than its predecessors, and can’t quite get there – at least for someone (like me) who’s never read the books. The problem is simple enough: the first two Potter films – Philosopher’s Stone and Chamber of Secrets – were charming but lightweight entertainments (in a word, childish). Now, however, the series wants to grow up and tries to piggyback on the earlier films, mining them for emotional weight they don’t possess and never did.
Example: Harry’s parents. We’ve always known they were killed but the films always soft-pedalled their deaths, not wanting to scare the kiddies. Now, at last, Harry gets to find out more: Who betrayed them? How did they die? Trouble is, they haven’t been established as important – on paper, yes, but not emotionally – so none of this new information is very meaningful. I’m no Lord of the Rings fan, but Gollum made a big enough impression in The Two Towers that it wasn’t a problem picking up his story again a year later. In Harry’s case, I couldn’t even recall the Cloak of Invisibility when it turned up again in this instalment, let alone the precise mythos of who did what to whom.
Of course, fans of the books won’t have this trouble – and the films are in many ways not ‘proper’ films but tie-ins with the books, like Harry Potter satchels or T-shirts. Yet the strategy of pursuing the saga on paper and film simultaneously seems to be backfiring slightly.
First and foremost, there’s the actors. It’s a good bet Daniel Radcliffe was chosen less for acting ability than for being British, well-spoken and a dead ringer for J.K. Rowling’s Harry; besides, all kids are ‘natural’ actors at age 10. Now he’s 13, however, and it’s clear – as the role gets more complex – that he’s not very expressive; he can do rage and fighting spirit, but melancholy and delicacy of feeling seem beyond him. Then there’s Rupert Grint as Ron, whose role seems to have shrunk considerably in this instalment. Maybe he was equally sidelined in the novel; then again, there’s also this slightly barbed comment by director Cuaron in a recent Entertainment Weekly: “Rupert is not with us. He is in a happier place, called Rupertland. He’s a little like Chauncey Gardiner from Being There. Is he a genius… or is he a fool?”
What if Rowling decided to give Ron a much bigger role in the new Harry Potter? What if she decided to up the ante, giving Harry emotional baggage that’s patently outside Radcliffe’s range? (Emma Watson’s Hermione, on the other hand, just gets better and better.) I suppose they could change it for the movie, but fans demand slavish adaptations; they’re already up in arms about Azkaban, which departs from Rowling more than its predecessors. The franchise could run into serious trouble.
Indeed, for this non-fan, the franchise is already in trouble – and it seems to be the fault of the original (which, I repeat, I haven’t read). Cuaron does bring something new: a harsher look, a sometimes looser vibe – as in a brief scene with Harry and his friends horsing around in the dormitory – a more mobile camera. He pays attention to the passing seasons, helped by a new, atmospheric location – Glen Coe in Scotland – bringing much-needed Spookiness Value. There are minor pleasures along the way (notably a wild ride in a triple-decker bus). Yet the material is inadequate, leaving the film with a ‘so what?’ feeling.
Azkaban is apparently the most beloved book among Potter-philes, but what’s onscreen is thin and undernourished. There’s basically one, not-too-shocking twist – a foe turns out to be a friend – and a couple of not-too-imaginative revelations about Harry’s folks. Even when it turns to Time-travel in its final act, the film lacks rigour or invention:
all our heroes really do is save the hippogryph – or whatever that strange beast was called – and use it to fly up to the tower and free the prisoner. The last half-hour could (and should) have been five minutes long if they’d just decided to wait till Sirius had been caught and done nothing in the interim; yet, the way it’s staged, Harry would be dead if the future Hermione hadn’t been around to distract the werewolf – even though she had no reason to be. And let’s not even mention the sci-fi anoraks’ favourite debate, the whole Mobius Strip of Future-changing-Past – except to wonder, don’t events have to happen once before they can be changed? But then how can Harry travel back in Time, if he’s supposed to be dead?
Maybe Azkaban is just transitional, setting up payoffs in future episodes, easing the shift to puberty. The film itself seems to realise this at the end, when Harry complains his actions “made no difference”. On the contrary, he’s told: he’s “helped uncover the truth”, and cleared the name of an innocent man. But has he? All he’s done is help him escape – how has the Prisoner’s name been cleared? Maybe the answer was lost in translation from page to screen.
Or maybe there is no answer: just a last-minute bid for Significance in a Potter that’s fun but somehow unnecessary.
NEW DVD RELEASES
Here’s a look at some of the more interesting titles released on DVD in the US and UK over the past few weeks (most are also out on VHS). Some may be available to rent from local video clubs, or you can always order over the Internet: dozens of suppliers, but http://www.amazon.com (for US) and http://www.sendit.com (for UK) are among the most reliable, if not necessarily the cheapest. Note that US discs are ‘Region 1’, and require a multi-region player.
NEW FILMS
MYSTIC RIVER: Special 3-disc Edition – which seems a bit much, even for one of last year’s finest films. Includes commentary by actors Tim Robbins and Kevin Bacon, two making-of featurettes, cast and crew interviews and more. [US]
BAD SANTA: Foul-mouthed comedy, starring Billy Bob Thornton as a very bad Santa; hilarious for those who can take it. Available both in theatrical cut and unrated version (called Badder Santa) with 5 minutes of extra footage. [US]
THE FOG OF WAR: A must-see: Errol Morris’ interview with Robert McNamara, architect of the Vietnam War, is both visually hypnotic and a subtle look at how politics operates, now more relevant than ever. DVD release includes 24(!) deleted scenes, making the film even richer. [US]
DECASIA: “Decasia is composed entirely of decaying, nitrate-based footage which seems to melt, burn, drip and deteriorate before our very eyes”. Extraordinary piece of avant-garde wizardry, set to haunting dissonant music. [UK]
OLD FILMS
SALVATORE GIULIANO (1961): One of the seminal political films of the 60s gets the deluxe treatment from the good folk at the Criterion Collection: 2-disc set, including trailer, commentary and Il Cineasta e il Labirinto, a 55-minute Italian documentary on director Francesco Rosi. [US]
FLOATING WEEDS (1959) & A STORY OF FLOATING WEEDS (1934): Criterion does it again, with two films by Yasujiro Ozu on the same package: his b&w, silent 1934 drama about a troupe of travelling actors and its lush 1959 remake in glorious colour. Both with commentary by noted critics. [US]
THE MARX BROTHERS COLLECTION: THE MGM YEARS (1935-46): Downhill all the way after the sublime A Night at the Opera, but still laughs to be found in all 7 of these films (on 5 discs). Titles include A Day at the Races and A Night in Casablanca (“You’ll hear from me, sir!” “Do that, even if it’s only a postcard”); also including vintage cartoons and comedy shorts from Our Gang, Robert Benchley, etc. [US]
LE DOULOS (1961) / LE CERCLE ROUGE (1970) / LEON MORIN PRETRE (1961): Three films by Jean-Pierre Melville – two of his wondrously atmospheric crime dramas plus the atypical Léon Morin, Prêtre, starring Jean-Paul Belmondo as a priest in rural France during the Occupation. [UK]
EATING RAOUL (1982): Cult black comedy about nice married couple who decide to murder ‘swingers’. Delicious. [US]
THE SMALL BACK ROOM (1949): Excellent, too-little-known British drama, starring David Farrar as bomb-disposal expert. [UK]
BILLIE (1965): A guilty pleasure, starring Patty Duke as teenage tomboy in small-town America. Irresistibly cheesy. [US]
SMILEY’S PEOPLE: BBC spy drama from John le Carré, starring Alec Guinness; a steal at £11 (plus shipping) for nearly 6 hours. [UK]
SCTV, VOL. 1: American (actually Canadian) version of Monty Python, from the late 70s; cast includes Rick Moranis, Eugene Levy and the late John Candy. [US]
THE SIMPSONS, SEASON 4: Itchy and Scratchy! Krusty the Klown! And so on. [US]
SIX FEET UNDER, SEASON 2: How much TV can you take? [US/UK]
CADFAEL, SERIES 3: Had enough yet? [UK]
THE TOMORROW PEOPLE, SERIES 5: Here’s one from the 70s! [UK]
KAVANAGH Q.C., SERIES 3: Just one more… [UK]
FRIENDS, SEASON 10: I think that’s the end of it. [UK]
