Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkabanreview by Peter T. Chattaway |
posted 6/04/2004
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The children, they grow so fast. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban is the tale in which J. K. Rowling's young orphan wizard becomes a teenager, and the first thing that strikes you about the new movie is how much more mature its protagonists have become, at least on the outside; the boys' faces are leaner, longer, a bit more rugged, definitely free of baby fat, while it seems Hermione Granger (played by Emma Watson), the one girl of any import, is about to blossom into an adolescent beauty.
Rupert Grint, Emma Watson, Daniel Radcliffe
This physical maturity is matched by a darker thematic and artistic sensibility. Unlike the first two films, which were directed in a typically clunky, treacly fashion by Chris Columbus, The Prisoner of Azkaban is the work of Alfonso Cuarón, a Mexican whose eclectic portfolio covers everything from the cute-as-a-button kids' flick A Little Princess to the sexually provocative Y Tu Mama Tambien. Cuarón brings darker colors and bolder, more imaginative visuals to this entry in the series, and for once, it can be said that a Harry Potter film has been made with something resembling a genuine artistic vision.
And just in the nick of time, too. The Prisoner of Azkaban is perhaps the most emotionally complex of the Harry Potter stories to date; it is here that Harry (Daniel Radcliffe) first encounters the Dementors, fearsome creatures which can suck the joy out of anyone who crosses their path, and it is here that he wrestles with his darkest, most murderous impulses. As the story begins, Harry is staying with his mean, muggle (i.e. non-magical) relatives, Uncle Vernon (Richard Griffiths) and Aunt Petunia (Fiona Shaw), and they are visited by the even meaner Aunt Marge (Pam Ferris), whose insulting remarks about Harry's parents prompt him to retaliate by making her puff up and float away like a balloon. Knowing that his unauthorized use of magic during the holidays ought to get him expelled from the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Harry runs away from home and is picked up by a magical double-decker bus that drops him off in the wizarding district. There, he is brought to the Minister of Magic, Cornelius Fudge (Robert Hardy), who surprisingly does not punish Harry but, instead, gives him a place to stay until school begins.
It turns out the authorities are concerned for everyone's safety—but especially Harry's—because a criminal named Sirius Black (Gary Oldman), who was sentenced to the maximum-security prison Azkaban 12 years ago for betraying Harry's parents to the Dark Lord Voldemort, has escaped and is thought to be heading for Hogwarts. The Dementors, who ordinarily guard Azkaban, now patrol the school grounds in seach of Sirius—and while Harry expresses a vengeful desire to kill Sirius himself, he is, if anything, even more terrified of the Dementors. Enter Professor Lupin (David Thewlis), the new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, who teaches Harry how to face his fears and resist the Dementors. Lupin, it turns out, is another former classmate of Harry's father, and in their moments together, Harry begins to form his first meaningful friendship with a grown-up. (The burly giant Hagrid may technically be an adult, but in many ways he's still a kid at heart.)
The Harry Potter novels have caused a great deal of concern for Christian parents and others who wonder if these books might get children interested in the occult, and of all the stories Rowling has written to date, The Prisoner of Azkaban may supply the strongest evidence for both sides of that debate. Many Christians—and I am one of them—defend the books on the basis that the "magic" contained within them serves the exact same purpose as the improbably high-tech devices that allow sci-fi characters to fly through space, shape-shift, teleport from one spot to another, and so on; as Charles Colson has put it, the magic in these books is "mechanical," not "occultic." Within Rowling's sub-creation (to borrow a term from J.R.R. Tolkien), Harry Potter is not a regular child who dabbles in supernatural powers forbidden to him by God, but rather, he is a child born with an unusual set of natural abilities, and like the mutants who study under Professor Xavier in the X-Men movies, he attends a special school to learn how to master his skills and use them wisely. And nothing has convinced me of the link between Harry Potter's "magic" and the high-tech wizardry of science fiction more than this story's introduction of time travel—yes, time travel. Somehow I doubt that's the sort of thing Wiccans practice in real life, and I suspect most children are smart enough to recognize that that sort of thing is pure make-believe.
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