Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 (2010) – Cathay @ AMK Hub. It doesn’t seem very long ago when I wrote a short review of the sixth Harry Potter film, but when I check that blog entry’s date, it’s been already 16 months and when Hannah was just 6 weeks old! How time flies. The Deathly Hallows is the seventh and second last film based on the last book. And with the eighth and last film to be released in theatres next year’s June, we’ll finally have to say goodbye then to a cast of film characters that’s been with us for more than a decade.
If memory serves rightly, when the series first started in 2001, the intention from the series’ producers was to have different directors make each film in the series. So, while the books themselves significantly changed in tenor from the fourth book onwards when Rowling killed off a non-minor character – and boy has she been on a roll since then in body count – the earlier films themselves already routinely looked different in terms of visual style each time. I’m glad that the last four films in the series though are directed by the same person – David Yates – as there’s more obvious visual consistency than ever before now.
As we were driving to the theatre over the weekend, I remarked to Ling that the only reason I could think of having two films based off the last book was because of it would bring about double ticket sales. After all, if Peter Jackson could get away with a 3.5 hour butt-tiring long film for The Return of the King, why can’t Yates do the same?
But to think of it now that I’ve seen the first of the two films on the weekend morning, it does make a little more sense. There’s a lot of material crammed into each of Rowling’s books, with the Deathly Hallows weighing in at a wrist-hurting 784 pages. Each of the earlier films have felt rushed, with barely adequate time devoted to the main characters, much less the numerous minor characters. The Deathly Hallows film, if nothing else, feels somewhat more methodical. Ideas are allowed a little more time to develop, personality dispositions to grow, and subplots to make sense.
For those of us unfamiliar with the book, here’s a capsule summary. Our intrepid trio of characters: Harry, Hermione and Ron (above), have left Hogwarts and are on a road trip to find and destroy the Horcruxes belonging to the evil dark wizard Voldemort (Ralph Fiennes), and in so doing, hopefully render him mortal and vulnerable for them to bury him for good. Their quest essentially takes them on a road trip to what looks like the United Kingdom that is going through the first stages of a magical war armageddon.
[Minor Spoilers]
It’s also interesting again to observe how different the films are now compared to the very first one in 2001. While John Williams’ Harry Potter theme still graces the first minute of this Deathly Hallows film, it’s almost only in the background before the much more ominous sounding film track accompanies the very dark visual palette comes up on the theatre screen. It’s no longer fun and games. In the opening scene, one of Hogwarts’ teachers is killed by Voldemort and turned into chow. And it’s not just the level of violence. There’re even implied male-female nudity scenes now, never mind that it was obviously computer-generated enhanced.
Also, while the film clocks in at 2.5 hours and – compared to the earlier films – takes things a little more slowly, lots of subplots and story developments still take place off screen. For instance, a couple of story developments specific to characters take place off screen and are delivered through one or two lines of dialog only. Lots of characters from the earlier films show up, and unless you’ve been kept to speed with what’s happened before, you’d be hard pressed to recognize all of them.
To be fair, the film rightly places its attention on the three main characters, so I guess it was inevitable that story portions not directly involving those three would have to be snipped from the film or never actually shot. I was also surprised to see the amount of time put towards the retelling of the Tale of the Three Brothers from the book; but it’s so beautifully animated that the scene deserves an award by itself.
Actions scenes were a bit of a surprise. There’s a adrenaline-rush vehicular-chase, an aerial battle, and wizard duels involving wands and even knives towards the end. Unfortunately, the first two battles were filmed using migraine-inducing shaky cam and quick cuts and what you’d expect from Paul Greengrass or Michael Bay. Yuck.
The film’s three young adult actors – Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint – have also grown up yet a little more, and their abilities to harness from a wider range of performances show too. The physical and emotional stress of their quest puts them for interesting confrontations between themselves, and those scenes don’t disappoint. The last scene in the Deathly Hallows’ book takes place 19 years after the main story’s events, and from what we know, Yates isn’t using older actors to play the three characters. It’ll be interesting to see then in June next year the three actors computer-aged by that much!
In a nutshell, the first Deathly Hallows film is pretty good. Ling liked the film a lot, though I thought it wasn’t quite perfect yet. I would have felt that the film could had been a little longer and story developments involving the supporting characters given a bit more screen time – but still. Time to go back and rewatch on HD the first six films again to get back up to speed.:)
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