Wolf Awareness Week - Day 7

 

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

2004

D: Alfonso Cuaron

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Pros: Visual Style , Characters, Humor, Music

Cons: Some Plot Holes, Especially the Time Turner

      After reviewing a bunch of bad films, I’m going to wrap up Wolf Awareness Week with a good one.  I believe Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban to be the first great film of the series.  While the first two movies were adequate family entertainment, they suffered from lackluster execution.  This was improved with the following sequels, but Azkaban is arguably the best directed.  Alfonso Cuaron, who would later go on to make the excellent Children of Men, did a wonderful job on this movie.  The effect is evident in the cinematography, action and acting.

     One of the first things I notice about the movie is its visual style.  I don’t agree with the people who prefer the “colorful” look of the first two movies.  I thought they looked relatively bland, and I generally like genre movies that look different from real life.  There are movies like Avatar, Ultraviolet, Speed Racer and Scott Pilgrim that do use various bright colors in a way that’s memorable, though.  I tend to like the movies that use color that look distinctive.  I believe genre movies should go for their stylized visuals, and the muted colors actually added atmosphere to Azkaban.  This, in addition to superior cinematography and the first good use of CGI in the series (despite having a similar budget to the first movie’s), made the thrills of this movie more effective.

     This really helps with the Dementors, the creatures who provide security at Azkaban prison.  While they seemed to be described in the books as looking like tall Grim Reapers, the movie has a frightening and distinctive design for them.  The direction makes sure that they are shown to the best possible effect.  They’ve been sent to Hogwarts to look for the escaped convict Sirius Black (Gary Oldman), and they’re described as foul demons who feed off positive emotions.  Harry is in particular danger from them because he’s had horrors in his past that would make him more vulnerable their attacks.  What has always confused me is that they have this fixation on Harry.  If they feed on positive emotions, why do they home in on the unhappiest kid in the school?  Now I suppose one could explain this by speculating that they were secretly in league with the Death Eaters before Order of the Phoenix, but then again Voldemort wants to kill Harry himself, and none of the adults in the movie seem the least bit perplexed by the fact that these monsters are doing the exact opposite of what makes sense for them.

     The movie’s plot revolves around the escape of Sirius Black.  Harry and his friends seek him out, but at the end of the movie, it turns out that he’s a good guy.  An old friend of his parents’ who was framed for their murder, he connects with Harry effectively.  The twist is milked out to an absurd degree in its reveal.  When Harry finally finds Sirius, he keeps talking vaguely about killing “him” and taking his sweet time telling Harry that he’s referring to the real villain.  Gary Oldman is great in this movie.  As a stereotypically villainous actor who’s also great at sympathetic roles, he makes an effective Red Herring.  The true culprit is Peter Pettigrew (Timothy Spall), who has been hiding in plain sight by posing as Ron’s rat, Scabbers.  Although people don’t give him much credit in-universe and out, I think he’s an effective and clever, albeit cowardly villain.  

      Now, since every Harry Potter movie must have a Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher who eventually succumbs to the curse of that position, we have the seemingly friendly Remus Lupin (David Thewlis).  Thewlis fits well and does a great job in the movie.  I’ve heard assertions that he was miscast, but I tend to assume it’s just fangirls’ not thinking he’s hot enough.  Then again, I watched this movie before I read the book.   As a friend of Harry’s late parents, he connects with him and they have some effective poignant moments as they talk about James and Lily.  Of course with a first name that’s on obvious reference to this and a last name that means “wolf,” it’s almost like this guy’s a werewolf or something.

A werewolf with a really bad combover.

Eventually, during the climax, he transforms into a werewolf during the full moon (and in the process accidentally exposing himself to Harry, Ron and Hermione).  Because he neglected to take the Wolfsbane Potion (a potion which would have prevented him from losing his mind and was briefly mentioned in the movie without actually being explained) for some reason, he attacks them and has to be fended off by Sirius.  Snape scores some points here for actually attempting to shield the children from the attack.  At the end of the movie, the occurrence forces him to resign in disgrace, making him the first DADA teacher in the series to be a sympathetic character.  One wonders why Dumbledore keeps this position open considering its curse.  Later on in the series, Lupin marries Tonks and has a child with her, although neither she nor the child become werewolves.  I always assumed that lycanthropy would be spread through intercourse, so I thought they would be.  I guess it was thinking in materialistic terms.  Magic is the same as science so the rules are different.  After all, I'm pretty sure lycanthropy is an allegory for pedophilia (Fenrir, or example likes to bite them when they're young).  The ugly act of a werewolf attack spreads it like child molestation can scar victims to the point where they become pedophiles themselves (also, Lupin a child victim of Fenrir, erroneously blames himself).  However, consensual sex with a werewolf doesn't spread the curse.        

     The werewolf transformation in the movie is very good.  I like the directing and editing in this scene, and the final form looks good.  It has the basic look of a good werewolf, but has a slightly pathetic appeal to it.  Oddly enough, I don’t see it on many online lists for best werewolf transformations.  I guess it’s due to bias against CGI (although I’m not the biggest fan of it, this effect is above average) a franchise that’s not straight horror.

       Since it’s Harry Potter, the movie has its share of plot holes, or arguably more. Despite being one of the better films in the series, Prisoner of Azkaban has one of the worst: second only to Goblet of Fire’s “we have to make Harry compete in the Tri-Wizard Tournament” excuse/idiot plot.  The time turner introduces a logical flaw that everyone has complained about.  I know it sounds funny that I forgive this movie for using time travel to solve a problem while I was less merciful on Superman and Superman II.  I guess it’s because in those movies it wasn’t so much a plot hole so much as a copout that rendered the whole movie pointless.  I also wonder why they let Hagrid be the Professor of Care of Magical Creatures when he constantly exposes the children to dangerous animals.  A friend put it well when he said, “You need a permission slip from your legal guardians to visit Hogsmeade, but you don’t need one to ride a Hippogriff.”  When the creature attacks Draco (Tom Felton), it’s sentenced to death while the distraught Hagrid received little to no punishment outside of that.  The magic world is weird. 

     Despite these gripes, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban has it where it counts.  Although many potentially interesting and informative subplots are dropped (such as the entirety of the Marauders’ backstory), that’s the price you sometimes pay in a movie adaptation.  The characters are funny and interesting.  The dialogue is alternately touching and snappy.  Even though the movie delivers on thrills and serious emotion far better than the previous two, it does a great job balancing the darkness with whimsy.  Unfortunately, this does not apply to the shrunken head in the Knight Bus, an annoying and baffling addition to the movie adaptation.  John Williams gives the score a more serious tone than the previous ones and there are some very good selections from the soundtrack.  Visuals and design are marked improvement, and so is the acting quality.  The actors look more comfortable in their roles.  Daniel Radcliffe starts to come into his own as a deadpan character.  Overall, the movie is very enjoyable.    

                          

          

QUOTES

CORNELIUS FUDGE: Come on now, Harry.  The Ministry doesn’t send people to Azkaban for blowing up their aunts.

HARRY: I didn’t mean to blow her up.  I just lost control.

RON: Brilliant!

HERMIONE: Honestly, Ron, it’s not funny!  Harry was lucky not to get expelled!

HARRY: I think I was lucky not to have been arrested, actually.

HERMIONE: But they’ll catch Black, won’t they?  I mean, everyone’s looking for him.

RON: Sure.  Except no one’s ever broken out of Azkaban before, and he’s a murderous, raving lunatic.

HARRY: Thanks, Ron.

HERMIONE: I think you owe someone an apology.

RON: Right.  Next time I see Crookshanks, I’ll let him know.

SNAPE: Which one of you can tell me the difference between an animagus and a werewolf? [Hermione raises her hand]  No one?  How disappointing. 

RON: Spiders….the spiders….they want me to tap dance.  And I don’t want to tap dance!

HARRY: You tell those spiders, Ron.

LUPIN: The very first time I saw you Harry, I recognized you immediately. Not by your scar, by your eyes. They're your mother, Lily's. Yes, I knew her. You mother was there for me at a time when no one else was. Not only was she a singularly gifted witch, she was also an uncommonly kind woman. She had a way of seeing the beauty in others, even, and perhaps most especially, when that person couldn't see it in themselves. Your father, James, however, had a certain, shall we say, talent for trouble. A talent, rumor has it, he passed onto you. You're more like them then you know, Harry. In time you'll come to see just how much.

LUPIN: I expect you're tired of hearing this, but you look so like your father. Except your eyes. You have...

HARRY: My mother’s eyes.

LUPIN: It's cruel that I got to spend so much time with James and Lily, and you so little.

LUPIN: Listen, dementors are among the foulest creatures to walk this earth. They feed on every good feeling, every happy memory until a person is left with nothing but his worst experiences. The dementors affect you more than others because there are true horrors in your past, horrors your classmates can scarcely imagine. You are not weak, Harry. You have nothing to be ashamed of.

HARRY: I’m scared, Professor.

LUPIN: Well, I’d consider you a fool if you weren’t.

SNAPE: Expelliarmus!  Ah, vengeance is sweet.  How I hoped I’d be the one to catch you.  I told Dumbledore yo were helping an old friend enter the castle, and now here’s the proof.

SIRIUS: Brilliant, Snape, once again you’ve put your keen and penetrating mind the task and as usual come to the wrong conclusion!  Now if you’ll excuse us, Remus and I have some unfinished business to attend to.

SNAPE: Give me a reason, I beg you.

LUPIN: Severus, don’t be a fool…

SIRIUS: He can’t help it.  It’s habit by now.

LUPIN: Sirius, be quiet!

SIRIUS: Be quiet yourself, Remus!

SNAPE: Listen to you two, quarrelling like an old married couple.

SIRIUS: Why don’t you run along and play with your chemistry set? 

SNAPE: I could do it, you know, but why deny the Dementors?  They’re so longing to see you.  Do I detect a flicker of fear?  Ah, yes.  The Dementor’s Kiss.  One can only imagine what that must be like to endure.  It’s said to be nearly unbearable to witness, but I’ll do my best.