Now that is out of the way lets began. I loved this movie. It is the best one made so far. The actors have matured and it shows in the acting and dialogue. Of course we can't get the whole book on film yet but I'm sure in the future this series will be done again. Harry Potter's character for me played his part expectantly however Ron Wesley character has blossomed as a character and actor. He is actually more handsome to me than Harry Potter but that is a matter of me having a thing for red heads. He played his part masterfully and believable for teenagers dealing with life or death. Ron acts like a teenager. You know sometimes when they can be so mature and others down right acting like an eight year old again. This movie is darker than all others. It's suppose to be too.
Harry felt forced and actually out of sync with his supporting actors. I must say they carried the film. We know the story, we know how it ends. Yet it is a story of such vivid awareness. I have read the books but seeing it on film when Harry, Hermione and Ron take the postulate juice and go into the Ministry of Magic. Wait let me stop and go back.
The wedding of Ron's brother through me back to thinking about Pearl Harbor or the early days of Britain in the second world war. Trying to do normal things like a wedding in abnormal and forbidding times. Bombs dropping every night or Jews rounded up on trains. My mind went to that. I got chills when the blue light came out of the sky like a fallen star announcing the fall of Ministry of Magic and then warning they are coming. I huddled in my seat thinking of my people fleeing villages as westerners raided villages to enslave my ancestors, I thought of Paul Revere riding through the night announcing "the British are coming." How folks probably huddled behind locked doors running to gather belongs to head to the woods or take up arms to protect family, life and country. Yes this movie, these books are telling a deeper story of humanity.
Harry felt forced and actually out of sync with his supporting actors. I must say they carried the film. We know the story, we know how it ends. Yet it is a story of such vivid awareness. I have read the books but seeing it on film when Harry, Hermione and Ron take the postulate juice and go into the Ministry of Magic. Wait let me stop and go back.
The wedding of Ron's brother through me back to thinking about Pearl Harbor or the early days of Britain in the second world war. Trying to do normal things like a wedding in abnormal and forbidding times. Bombs dropping every night or Jews rounded up on trains. My mind went to that. I got chills when the blue light came out of the sky like a fallen star announcing the fall of Ministry of Magic and then warning they are coming. I huddled in my seat thinking of my people fleeing villages as westerners raided villages to enslave my ancestors, I thought of Paul Revere riding through the night announcing "the British are coming." How folks probably huddled behind locked doors running to gather belongs to head to the woods or take up arms to protect family, life and country. Yes this movie, these books are telling a deeper story of humanity.
We are watching across the Atlantic as apartheid played out for generations thinking, believing it had nothing to do with us. It did. We who cluck our tongues, shake our heads saying look at them or that's not what we do here in our country. But go down some alley off main street and you will find the same only hidden from unseeing eyes. The metaphors, allegories go on and on. I will see the movie again.
Back to Harry as a worker in the Ministry of Magic stumbles into the area where Dolores Umbridge overseas. She is the poster child for self-righteous, pompous, ignorant sheep of the world. Harry walks past the factory like workstations that could be cubicles of today, of people diligently printing negative propaganda about Muggleborns. It easily could be about Latinos, Jews, Blacks. Asians, people of the ethnic regions of Russia, Kosovo, Serbia, Muslims, Christians. You get it don't you. That frame gets to be slowed down and shown again and again. Wow. Its a dark place in stark red and black letters these pamphlets are being printed. Oh that scene is huge. I wanted to freeze frame it. It is a teaching moment in any classroom. Harry was in shock at how fast the hating and killing started. How fast the persecution of people who were mixed of human and magic birth was happening.The interrogations reminded me of the reading I had done on the Inquisition. This story, this movie is timeless. It is retelling of what ails humanity today in fresh voices for a new generation. Its asking us not to forget our recent bigotries against interracial marriages, people who look different, people of different cultures or victories of overcoming a brutal dark murderous past where we killed, people, native people all over the globe for land, gold and religion.
Is it not a wonder Valdamor looks like a snake. A deceiver to all who follow him. A figure of power who will kill his own followers children. Do we not know someone or people like the Malfords? How many parents due to ego, pride have set their children up for failure or inherit a tarnished legacy and the fall so far from grace only a miracle from the persecution can save your ass. It's a masterpiece of storytelling. It is a story to be started a dusk around the camp fire of eager young hearts desiring to hear. It is to be read aloud to remind us as humans, as the masses we are followers and only the 1 percent will stand up when the river and tides go against what is right and the right thing to do. It is the story of Katrina that when a disaster happens politicians, government can't help you. You had better have a back up plan involving trust, neighbors and family. That when the infrastructure of what holds moral fabric in check breaks down we will do the unthinkable to save, preserve ours at the risk of turning on friends and neighbors. This is so demonstrated when Harry, Ron and Hermione go to Lula's fathers house to get information and he turns them in to get his daughter back. Oh its tragic people. Its for the weeping and the gnashing. Its not a pretty or neat Disney all will be well. All is not well and its going to get worse. People, good people die for a right cause. Innocent child like people die doing what is right because it is what they were called to do. This is what Doby the little elf represents. The innocence of a child, a knowing of what is right in the midst of darkness and peril. He stands loyal servant to serve when adults with power and authority have all ran afraid of a snake looking man. A self- hating man who is Muggleborn like Hitler was half Jewish. Its so dynamic people.
Are you hearing, are you listening. The children are leading. Doby's sacrifice goes beyond the tears everyone openly shed when he died. We feel it. Why I ask myself do I feel this so deeply. Why do we/I cried like a baby when I read it in the book and again even seeing the movie. J.K. Rowling oh you went there. All the way there to the depths of what the price of civil war, hatred, slavery, prejudice is when we don't stamp it out completely. We can't leave the door open for it to come back. We can't have that spirit dwelling around in any form. Valdamor represents this. He can't be human looking. That amount of hatred leaves one disfigured, insane ate up from the inside out. It is all of these negative characteristics that takes away his humanness. He is the embodiment of a soulless being. It is hard to look at. It leads by fear and speaks with a lying tongue. It is dying and so everything around it must represent the death and decay it is. Oh J.K. how twisted sister.
We know these people. They have lived in the past and exist even now. To that end everyone wants to own the ultimate weapon or weapon of mass destruction.
J.K. Rowling's is twisted. I love her mind. She has taken magic, wizardry and fantasy and created a masterpiece of children tales to teach about loyalty, unconditional love, death, dying, redemption, and forgiveness. These books are the foundation of the new classics that future generations will look to to share with their children and family.
J.Ks fable is a modern tale. She writes a story to be told a dusk around a camp fire, a story to be read in the children's circle with adults rapt attention hanging on every word. It is a human tale of our struggle in humanness. How we fail yet there is always opportunity for redemption however sometimes the fall is long, ugly, dark and deadly.
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