HARRY POTTER: ENGLISH VERSION.

Cine Debate Crítica

CRITIQUE / FILM & TV / FRANCHISE

Harry Potter: The Heresy of Not Being a Fan and the Million-Dollar Gimmick

A caustic look at the magical franchise that took over the world (and your plumbing).

by BENJAMIN GAVARRE

Talking about the cinematic hyper-franchise of Harry Potter nowadays feels like committing absolute heresy, especially if one is not a devoted acolyte of this massive cult that has taken over several generations. Years ago, I found myself in a distant country, in what used to be the kingdom of Siam, seeking a moment of peace in a temple dedicated to Buddha. The ironies of fate crossed my path with an old friend and his companion, a hardcore fanatic who, upon learning that I had studied literature, proudly showed off a gigantic tome of the boy wizard as if she had just discovered literary gunpowder. For someone educated by the pen of Oscar Wilde, the tragedies of William Shakespeare, the sharpness of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, the psychological terror of Edgar Allan Poe, or the labyrinths of Julio Cortázar, hearing that humanity's magnum opus was about an orphan flying on broomsticks was baffling. This willful blindness of its followers, who assume there is nothing beyond the walls of their magical castle, is perhaps the saga's first great illusion trick.

Eventually, by a twist of fate and thanks to a plumbing tragedy that forced me to stay locked at home, I stumbled upon a complete marathon on HBO and faced the beast. From the first minutes of the first feature film, it is evident that we are dealing with a highly astute commercial hodgepodge: an amalgam of stolen fairy tales, diluted Celtic mythology, self-help manual witchcraft, and extrasensory phenomena, all packaged with an emotional load of predictable, forced, and somewhat fake reactions. Our protagonist, played by Daniel Radcliffe and his irritating, inseparable John Lennon-style round wire-rimmed glasses, isn't inherently unpleasant, but he is surrounded by archetypes that get tiring fast. By his side, we have the redhead friend, Ron Weasley (Rupert Grint), who for eight movies maintains a perpetual expression of panic, as if he had an unbearable urge to go to the bathroom. Completing the trinity is Hermione Granger (Emma Watson), the walking stereotype of the insufferable know-it-all who, fortunately, refined her acting grace over the years while her character continued to solve all the problems of the useless males accompanying her. All this after escaping the classic adoptive parents caricatured to the extreme of cruelty, the infamous Dursleys.

The story quickly transports us to Hogwarts, the academy of magic and sorcery. Technically, this is where even the snobbiest critic has to take their hat off. Stuart Craig's production design, using real and spectacular locations like Alnwick Castle, Gloucester Cathedral, and the dining halls of Oxford University, endows the series with an undeniably aristocratic and deeply English air. It is the wet dream of British snobbery packaged for the global masses. The special effects, backed by Warner Bros.' endless millions, were dazzling in their time. Those iconic animated paintings adorning the castle's hallways and stairs almost prophetically foreshadowed our current dependence on GIFs; today, those images that were once a technological shock are something familiar we all hold in the palm of our hands on our smartphones.

If there is anything that sustains this pastiche of clichés and prevents it from sinking under its own weight, it is its impeccable and legendary casting department, especially on the villains' side. We have Severus Snape, that potions professor looking like a sinister monk with slicked-back hair, who took on a fascinating, tortured, and tragic life thanks to the immense talent of the late Alan Rickman. On the side of the "pure-blood" dark aristocracy, the Malfoys (led by the platinum-blonde Lucius, played by Jason Isaacs) fulfill their function perfectly. But let's talk about the great antagonist: Lord Voldemort. Masterfully played by Ralph Fiennes, this psychopath who scatters his soul into seven fragments (the famous Horcruxes) terrifies the child audience, although on a technical level, his face in post-production sometimes looks weird, with a CGI blur in the missing nose area that looks more like a smudge on the director's lens than true dark magic. And of course, there is Dolores Umbridge (Imelda Staunton), a bureaucrat dressed in hot pink with the passive-aggressive attitude of a demonic gossip TV host. Her method of school torture, forcing Harry to write "I must not tell lies" while the letters carve themselves into his own blood, is of a sadism that surely traumatized more than one kid in the movie theater. Watching a horde of centaurs finally drag her into the dark forest is one of the most cathartic and applauded pleasures the franchise offers. All this under the benevolent gaze of Albus Dumbledore, a sorcerer functioning as a recycled Merlin for the 20th and 21st centuries.

Despite these great visual and acting successes, the script abuses formulas and catchphrases that border on nauseating. The sickly insistence that "you look like your father, but you have your mother's eyes" is repeated ad nauseam, becoming an unbearable echo. Harry is constantly treated like a messiah descended from the literary heavens, the prodigy who receives all the rewards, always saves his friends, and faces absolute evil. It is also tremendously ironic that this series, which preaches that half-bloods ("mudbloods") are as valuable as anyone else and that blood purity is a fascist evil, comes from a writer who is currently embroiled in global controversies. The once untouchable millionaire J.K. Rowling has become an odious figure to a large part of her former devotees due to her constant and strident transphobic comments on social media.

Watching the actors grow on screen, in the style of a prolonged anthropological experiment through different directors (from Chris Columbus's childlike wonder, through Alfonso Cuarón's brilliant darkness, to David Yates's visual bureaucracy), is fascinating. The physical contrast becomes comical: the easily frightened redhead gets gym muscles to compensate for his contrite attitude, while Daniel Radcliffe remains stoically thin, carrying the weight of the magical world and global fame. It is no secret that the crushing stress of the Hollywood machinery caused Radcliffe to suffer severe crises, pushing him to seek artistic redemption in theatrical projects like Equus. There, we finally got to see him liberated, showing his enormous acting talent (and his full anatomy) far away from the stigma and, above all, free from those damn round glasses.

When we finally reach the climax in the final installments, the visual spectacle is undoubtedly momentous. The epic battle between the blurry-nosed supervillain and the scarred youth fulfills its blockbuster function. The outcome, where Harry temporarily dies to return triumphant, is nothing more than a direct recycling of the monomyth and Joseph Campbell's "The Hero with a Thousand Faces". The protagonist must transcend death to acquire divine proportions and defeat the darkness. All this serves perfectly to feed the true magic of the series: the multi-million dollar sale of tons of paraphernalia, from overpriced plastic wands and scarves to John Williams' music and coffee mugs.

At the end of the day, it is completely understandable that serious critics and demanding cinephiles find Harry Potter full of cardboard gestures, predictable child acting, and a mishmash of myths packaged in cellophane. The saga will never reach the complex, visceral, and wonderful narrative level of great fantasy works or the Machiavellian politics of series like Game of Thrones (at least in its good seasons), where the acting quality did not rely on stereotypes and magic wands. Harry Potter is not the definitive work of art that my ex-friend in Thailand swore it was, but it is a monumental milestone of industrial cinema. It is a visually exquisite fool's gold, ideal for spending a long marathon afternoon without thinking too much... especially if your house's plumbing broke down and you have no other choice.