¶ 22 November 2005
I love that Hogwarts is starting to seem familiar. That is, I love that Newell allowed it to seem more familiar in this one. Locations are presented repeatedly, and without grand reveals, so we simply return to them. A bit of snow slips off of a gable. People sweep and scurry up and down the Hall. The Express has a schedule to abide.
Instead of a set-designer's portfolio piece, then, we get a movie about kids, and arguably a better movie about kids than the book semi-about kids from which it was derived. In print, Rowling's characters are nominal teenagers growing up by reluctant shades in a largely timeless dreamworld prioritized for eternal ten-year-olds. On screen, conversely, the actors inevitably drag the characters forward faster than the narrative. Mortified adolescence is mercilessly hard to explicate, but effortlessly easy to see when it's standing in front of you in terrible hair and enraptured panic. And what fantabulous monsters are ever mined from deeper in a child's psyche than the prospect of Peter Garrett making a solo album without a nose?
And some judgmental piece of me, too, is grimly satisfied by the strokes that thud even more hollowly when brought towards life. How can a few malcontents in pointy hats torch the entire encampment of the world's largest gathering of magical power? Why are the other two schools single-sex, why did nobody tell Beauxbatons that they were supposed to provide a champion rather than a damsel in distress, and since when is Bulgaria north of England? If the Goblet of Fire can't count to three or spot a fake ID, what the hell is it good for? What kind of school-system runs a sanctioned competition with such high expenses for such limited participation, and one in which routine penalties include having your younger sister drowned? If even the ghosts and the giants are horny, how many sleek wizardettes in tight blue skirts and elf-condom hats do you think each of the twins managed to initiate into their own private exchange program?
And how did none of the security systems detect the Mad-Eye Moody rootkit for a whole school year?
Instead of a set-designer's portfolio piece, then, we get a movie about kids, and arguably a better movie about kids than the book semi-about kids from which it was derived. In print, Rowling's characters are nominal teenagers growing up by reluctant shades in a largely timeless dreamworld prioritized for eternal ten-year-olds. On screen, conversely, the actors inevitably drag the characters forward faster than the narrative. Mortified adolescence is mercilessly hard to explicate, but effortlessly easy to see when it's standing in front of you in terrible hair and enraptured panic. And what fantabulous monsters are ever mined from deeper in a child's psyche than the prospect of Peter Garrett making a solo album without a nose?
And some judgmental piece of me, too, is grimly satisfied by the strokes that thud even more hollowly when brought towards life. How can a few malcontents in pointy hats torch the entire encampment of the world's largest gathering of magical power? Why are the other two schools single-sex, why did nobody tell Beauxbatons that they were supposed to provide a champion rather than a damsel in distress, and since when is Bulgaria north of England? If the Goblet of Fire can't count to three or spot a fake ID, what the hell is it good for? What kind of school-system runs a sanctioned competition with such high expenses for such limited participation, and one in which routine penalties include having your younger sister drowned? If even the ghosts and the giants are horny, how many sleek wizardettes in tight blue skirts and elf-condom hats do you think each of the twins managed to initiate into their own private exchange program?
And how did none of the security systems detect the Mad-Eye Moody rootkit for a whole school year?