Running, jumping, climbing trees…

Harry Potter by Snappybex

Good films, getting better…

Anyone able to cast their minds back to the year 2001 can only be impressed by the development of the Harry Potter franchise. Subsequent viewings of Christopher Columbus’ Harry Potter and Philosopher’s Stone reveal the first film to be shallow and uninspiring, starved of the intricacy of plot and depth of meaning and texture required to create a gripping fantasy film. In the end it was saved by a remarkably good Quidditch scene, the colourful variety of Rowling’s characters and the portentous debut of the obviously talented Rupert Grint.

In the eight years since, the Harry Potter franchise has improved quickly. Gone is Christopher Columbus’ Hogwarts – airy, cheerful and innocent: filled up to its high stone ceilings with grinning children, roasted turkeys and mischievous staircases. This vision has been dismantled piece by piece, firstly by the director Alfonso Cuarón and then by Mike Newell and David Yates. The pace of storytelling has quickened as the plot has grown increasingly black, the directors preferring to rely more on imagery than exposition. The more recent of the Potter films displaying more and more good examples of filmmaking – with the mood suggested less by babbling children and more by the tearful stain glass portraits and the howling winds outside.

Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince is the darkest film the franchise will produce. Now beginning his sixth year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Harry knows that his enemy Voldemort has returned. More and more loyal wizards are defecting, motivated by fear and by greed. His death eaters, a rumour suggests, have even infiltrated Hogwarts itself. Following the execution of Cedric Diggory and the death of Sirius Black, in Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, another of Harry’s friends will die as another chunk of J.K. Rowling’s wonderful plot is exposed.

There is something of the feeling of a pantomime about the release of a new Harry Potter film. They give you the opportunity to see all of your favourite actors in one sitting – for me that’s Maggie Smith, Alan Rickman, Helena Bonham Carter and Robbie Coltrane. This time they are joined by Jim Broadbent and – perhaps more interestingly – by Hero Fiennes-Tiffin, the newest member of the Fiennes film dynasty, who, at the age of ten, plays the young Lord Voldemort.

Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince is a sad, dark film laced, as usual, with a soaring elfish soundtrack and moments of awkwardly adolescent humour. It should well be worth an evening of your time.

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image credit: snappybex