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BY MOLLY TEMPLETON
Long Live Hogwarts
A fitting farewell for Harry Potter
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24 JULY 21, 2011
EUGENE WEEKLY
Screenplay by Steve Kloves, based on the novel
by J.K. Rowling. Cinematography, Eduardo Serra.
Music, Alexandre Desplat. Editor, Mark Day. Starring
Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint, Alan
Rickman, Ralph Fiennes, Matthew Lewis and Evanna
Lynch. Warner Bros. Pictures, 2011. PG-13. 130
minutes. 44442
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HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY
HALLOWS PART 2: Directed by David Yates.
t all ends,” read the posters for
Harry Potter and the Deathly
Hallows Part 2. And end it
does, if by “it” you mean only the series of
fi lms, an up-and-down adventure from the
fi rst moment we met a wide-eyed Harry
(Daniel Radcliffe) to the last scene of Part
2’s epilogue. Potter isn’t over, and won’t be;
not only will new readers keep coming to
the books, but fans will keep writing fan-
fi ction in which Harry and Draco have a
torrid secret romance, and J.K. Rowling
will keep teasing and pleasing her zillions
of readers with things like Pottermore, the
“exciting online experience around the
reading of the Harry Potter books” that will
be unveiled at the end of the month.
Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived, will
keep living, as immortal as a fi ctional
character can be. How long until the fi lms
get remade? A decade? A new Potter boy, a
new set of redheaded Weasleys? A certain
sense of inevitable continuation hangs over
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part
2, rendering it slightly anticlimactic. It all
already ended once, in 2007, when owls in
the form of letter carriers dropped heavy
packages on doorsteps, each containing
a specially packaged copy of the seventh
Harry Potter book.
But that doesn’t keep Deathly Hallows
Part 2 from being its own satisfying,
exceptional experience. You’ll get no
recap, no “Previously, on Harry Potter
... ”; director David Yates, in his fourth
well-earned Potter bow, has no time for
that. From the seaside Shell Cottage, the
fi lm moves swiftly to Gringotts, where
Helena Bonham Carter does a pitch-perfect
Emma-Watson-as-Hermione impression;
to dark, unwelcoming Hogsmeade, where
Aberforth Dumbledore (Ciaran Hinds) has
a truncated but vital part to play; and fi nally
to Hogwarts, where Neville Longbottom
(Matthew Lewis), the boy who was almost
the story’s hero, leads the bruised and
tattered remnants of Dumbledore’s Army.
Hogwarts, muted and gloomy, looms like
a ghost of its once bright and welcoming
self. In the shadow of war, somber students
march under the cold eye of headmaster
Severus Snape (Alan Rickman).
Snape is as key to the events of Deathly
Hallows as young Mr. Potter himself, and
Rickman, as ever, utterly owns his part.
(If you can read the Potter books without
hearing Snape’s dialogue in Rickman’s dry,
precise tones, you are made of stronger
imaginative stuff than I.) Oddly, though the
story wraps its complicated threads around
the central trio (while giving Hermione little
to do but comment on the brilliance of Ron’s
every idea), the grown-ups get many of the
memorable scenes: Molly Weasley (Julie
Walters) hollering her battle cry; Minerva
McGonagall (Maggie Smith) wordlessly
banishing a man from Hogwarts; Narcissa
Malfoy (Helen McCrory) making a choice
that seals so many fates. Hers isn’t the only
key choice, but it’s a quiet and vital moment
that, as is so often the case in Rowling’s
world, hinges on the decisions we make out
of love.
Rowling can be a bit heavy-handed
with her theme, but Yates and screenwriter
Steve Kloves have a lighter approach to the
power-of-love aspect of her tale. What’s
most striking in this fi nal fi lm is less the
emotional wallop than the gorgeous,
convincing world in which the wizards’
great battle takes place. From the caverns
of Gringotts to the towers of Hogwarts, the
locations feel entirely real. Stone warriors
clunk heavily to the ground; dragons’ wings
look solid enough to run your hand over; a
barrage of spells fi lls the sky like so much
more than a wall of twinkling lights.
By grounding a dizzying battle in precise,
believable effects and a solid sense of where
everyone is at any given moment, Yates and
his team give the fi lm a respectable amount
of heft to go along with its heart. They
can’t do much about Rowling’s sentimental
epilogue, but somehow, the passing of the
Potter torch is slightly less cloying on screen
(apart from the poor aging-up of the relevant
characters). It’s a reminder that there’s
always another generation coming along,
reaching for books, listening to stories,
ready to set foot on Platform 9 3/4 and
wait for that splendid train to whisk them
off to Hogwarts. And Hogwarts, on page or
screen, will always be there.
ew
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