Film Review: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban [1/2*]

[yangvalyang]

This past summer, while I was working in car sales, I kept myself amused by watching several new movies in the theaters. Mostly, they were popcorn flicks, big action blockbusters ranging from poignantly well-written tales of personal conflict of Spider-Man 2 to the simple, satisfying eye candy of Chronicles of Riddick. Surprisingly, the most disappointing of these was Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. There were high hopes for this movie from fans and critics alike, fueled the anticipation of Alfonso Cuaron's succession of Chris Columbus in the director's chair. Cuaron's raw cinematic talent was lauded with the international acclaim of his "Y tu mama tambien." Everybody expected from him a refreshing reimagination of Harry Potter's universe, something to reenergize Columbus's interpretation of Rowling's literary imagery. I have not seen "Y tu mama tambien", but regardless of how well he executed that work, I have no doubt that he is the wrong man for Harry Potter.

I think why my regard for Azkaban differs from most film critics' is that I approached this movie as an interpretation of a beloved text. They judge Azkaban as a movie, without considering its literary roots. A movie is pictures--moving pictures, and I suppose if you go see moving pictures and sounds, then this movie would entertain you much more than its two predecessors. Cuaron's HP world is dark and gritty, and you see details in magical life that Columbus's picture book perfect recreation did not provide. Cuaron's Azkaban can be considered a true reimagination compared to Columbus's meticulous recreation. Is it visually entertaining? Utterly. But the meat and breadth of Harry Potter's appeal lies within its rich storytelling. This is where Cuaron's film fails utterly.

Being a fan of Rowling's original prose, I left the the theater both deeply disappointed and unfulfilled. For me, this feeling was compounded by the poorly written screenplay and shoddy editting, combining to ruin--what is in my opinion--the apex of the Harry Potter narrative. The books containing Years 1 through 3 were incredibly cohesive stories, each of their narrative held together by a singular theme. Year 1, it was Discovery, Harry learning of his heritage and the wonderment of his entrance into magical life. Year 2, it was about Uncertainty, where Harry discovers he may be the Heir of Slytherin and learns that destiny is defined by choice and freewill. And in Year 3, it was about about Life and Death, wherein Harry has to face the brutal memories of relatives dead and those that may yet be alive. Each of Columbus's two movies not only painted the picturesque tableau of Hogwarts life w/out seeming hurried through the school yeah, they also embodied Rowling's narrative themes.

Cuaron's gritty visual presentation of Harry's life makes us feel already jaded about the magical world--the details and imagery feel so worn and old that we feel like we're looking into the twilight of an era of magic, not a thriving secret world of wizardry and mystical beasts. Furthermore, his rapid jumping between certain subplots force the storyline forward at awkward leaps. Lupin saves Harry from Snape's wrath when roaming w/ the Marauder's Map, but in the very next scene we see him explaining to Harry the map is a dangerous tool. In Snape's hands, the Map was already self-deactivated, so how did Lupin know it was a map to begin with? Alas, the Padfoot, Prongs, Moony and Wormtail nicknames are never explained, however integral they are to the histories of Sirius Black and Remus Lupin. Then there's the "Harry crying in the snow" debacle, a scene of such laughable drama, I could almost see him bawling, "I killed them all! Not just the men, but the WOMEN, and the CHILDREN. They were like animals and I slaughtered them like animals!" The revelation of Sirius Black's betrayal and the death of the Potters was originally told in a circle of people cornerstoned by one whom Harry loved--Hagrid, amongst other professors and then Cornelius Fudge. But instead, we have Fudge rushing into town, and into a secluded room as if it was important to tell it to only Madame Rosemerta! Cuaron's Azkaban fumbles this "major backstory revelation" and goes for the hat trick by watering down the climax in the Shrieking Shack. All the dramatic talent in that room could not compensate for the visual and editorial Duketastrophe that Cuaron inflicted upon Rowling's passionate prose.

But this is the least of our worries, as Kloves and Cuaron have discarded the idea of "Live and Death" in exchange for the contrivance of "Time" as the theme. Yes, Time does play a major role in the denouement of the story, but the continued use of it through imagery (the giant Hogwarts grandfather-style clock tower) and Dumbledore's quiet nighttime speech, only feeds as a giant "wink-wink" hint at its purpose of being a Plot Device late into the story. And only after you've followed through with the entire movie do you truly realize what all that winking and smirking was about. Unlike "Discovery" and "Uncertainty", we never feel the theme of "Time" play a role in much of Harry's Year 3.

Which leads us climactically to my greatest grievance with Cuaron's Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban--the omission of a major subplot carrying "Life and Death" as a theme. In Rowling's story, Harry is not only overcome w/ dizziness and fainting when besieged by dementors' "Black Breath", but he experiences suppressed memories of his parents' murder. As his patronus training under Lupin proceeds and his exposure to dementors' presence increases, these syncopic flashbacks intensify in clarity and detail. Harry has only ever experienced the memory of his parents through scurrilous lies from his aunt and uncle or soundless magical pictures gifted to him from Hagrid. He at first horrified by these flashbacks, but begins to secretly enjoy them, much to his own guilt. He has, after all, never heard his parents' voices, and this is the most viscereal connection to them he has ever had.

For me, this was the most touching subplot in all of Harry Potter. He is tragically conflicted between wanting to hear his parents and wanting to defeat the dementors. His resolve and focus to produce a patronus is weakened by his secret desire to hear his parents in the flashbacks. Yet, the flashbacks only come if he fails his patronus and is defeated by a dementor. His dilemma folds into itself thus in a morbid cycle. I actually felt lumps in my throat at certain points of Harry's turmoil, such was the clarity and impact of his flashbacks. This jarring omission was the bunker buster that vaporized the camel's pack. The Flashback Subplot can quite literally carry the weight of the entire narrative by itself, it so embodies the themes of Harry's conflicts. "Life and Death" . . . should he let the memory of James and Lily fester in his dreams or should he lay them to rest and live his life? Should he embrace his hate for Sirius Black and seek revenge or trust to justice? And yet such justice is embodied by dementors with such evil that engenders the very Flashbacks to begin with. Are you following this? I'm amazed that such depth is found within what is a children's book. Heretically, as much as I hate to admit it, my beloved Tolkien did not inject such pathos into his children's book, The Hobbit.

To conclude my address on the Flashback Subplot, only after knowing the sheer magnitude of Harry's emotional turmoil we can we truly begin to understand his fury and recklessness toward Sirius Black when they finally meet. Yet Cuaron and Kloves emerge at the height of their folly by failing to delineate these titanic personal struggles. How much more human the story would have been. How much more chilling and more passionate. Rowling's storytelling reached the apex of its quality with Azkaban; and so it is that much much more unfortunate we should see its cinematic analogue fall into deplorability. I hate to say it, but with The Prisoner of Azkaban, Alfonso Cuaron has done to Harry Potter what George Lucas's Phantom Menace did to Star Wars. It was spasmodic, unfulfillng mixture of fantasy and crap. I name it--Fantacrap!