Neither hallowed nor hollow

Film review: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

MANILA, Philippines - A movie adaptation is usually only as good as its source. In the case of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the challenge for director David Yates is that the material he has to work with is possibly the weakest in the Harry Potter series. The plot has more twists than Pollyana’s braids. The weft and the waft are intricately interwoven, but with the loose strands and split ends showing. Deathly Hallows, though a page-turner, is a book that could have benefited from the keen edge of Occam’s razor.

The first installment of Deathly Hallows follows the three friends Harry (Daniel Radcliffe), Ron (Rupert Grint), and Hermione (Emma Watson), in their quest to destroy the horcruxes, objects into which the dark wizard Voldemort (Ralph Fiennes) has kept parts of his soul. Along the way, they learn about the “deathly hallows,” three magical objects the possession of which allows one to be master of death. Such a plot structure should leave a director much room to flesh out a character, but it also runs the risk of making the movie drag.

A bit of both happens. We see the best and worst of the three characters as they dodge the Death-eaters around them, on the one hand, and confront insecurities that eat them up from within, on the other. Yates tries to keep the narrative going, delineating episodes with fadeouts, but J. K. Rowling’s book pullulates with incidents as gremlins multiply in water. For the duration of almost two hours and 30 minutes, the movie has to presume on the audience’s familiarity with both the antecedent events and the source material — not for the casual viewer, this.

The more basic problem, however, is that the frame of reference is never fully established for either reader or viewer. For all the details in Rowling’s books (and in the movies), the details that do matter are simply not given or are cavalierly thrown in. Fantasy as a genre requires patience and openness from readers, a willing suspension of disbelief. Unlike in realism, one cannot assume to know the laws that govern the text. Fantasy writers hold almost all the cards, and Rowling holds them very close to herself. Because she does not establish, whether willfully or not, the donnèe of her imagined universe, she can pull the rug from under our feet. Thus, characters, magical objects, and magical creatures are conveniently summoned and as conveniently disposed of, never mind if they contradict what happened in earlier installments or, indeed, undermine the presumed logic of the story. The all-too-convenient deluminator is a case in point. The effect, after an hour or so, is that one begins to ask, “May ganoon?”

Yates has a lot to overcome, and the movie, thankfully, does have things to recommend it. It suits the manner to the matter. The darker tone of the book finds a proper visual correlative in the grey skies and unforgiving landscape that the main characters find themselves in — a stark contrast to the more congenial, if still mysterious, atmosphere of Hogwarts and its environs in the previous movies. Yates made newspaper headlines a transition device in the last three Potter movies; here, he uses the radio to create the mood of continual dread. There are also moments of recognizable humanity amid the bangs and whizzes of wizard duels. The cliffhanger ending is worthy of The Empire Strikes Back and The Two Towers — with the good just barely pulling itself out of a tight spot and the bad apparently triumphant.

The best part is probably the telling of the legend of the deathly hallows. The animation style recalls the Wayang-Kulit and the puppetry of Jim Henson, especially his Storyteller series. According to the legend three brothers come upon a treacherous river that would have meant sure death. Using their magic, however, they make a bridge, and as they are crossing it Death appears to them. He pretends to reward them, but he is secretly plotting to get back at them for depriving him of more lives. The eldest is given a powerful wand; the second, a stone that can bring back the dead; the third, a cloak of invisibility. With these objects — the deathly hallows — the brothers think that they have conquered Death. All but the last of the gifts, however, betray their owner to Death. Power invites its own destruction; and only the youngest brother, whose cloak keeps him, as it were, “under the radar,” avoids Death. Only when he decides to pass on the cloak to his son many years later does Death find him. “And then he greeted Death as an old friend, and went with him gladly, and, as equals, they departed this life.”

It is a story with a hoary pedigree, going back to Chaucer and beyond, and is as wise and as haunting as the best parables go.

One begins to see that the heart not only of the movie but also of the entire Harry Potter series is the fact of death: How to define it, how to face it when it comes, and what to do in the meantime. There is Voldemort’s way, which is, as his name implies (a friend who knows French pointed this out to me), to leap over death; but there is, too, Harry’s way, which — not to spoil the ending for those who haven’t read the books — has something of Jesus Christ’s in it.

For attempting to broach subject as (excuse the pun) grave as this to children — a taste of blackberries, as another children’s book puts it — Rowling deserves some kudos, as does the film franchise. What is open to debate is not the vision but its execution. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is not a hallowed movie, but it is not a hollow one either. It should keep one entertained enough until the next movie, which will bring the series not only to its end but also, it is hoped, to its resurrection.