By Mark HadleyFriday 12 Nov 2010MoviesReading Time: 3 minutes
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1
Rating: M
Distributor: Roadshow
Release Date: November 18, 2010
The Internet is awash with countdowns to the release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1, the seventh installment in the defining franchise for a generation of young readers. You can find everything from fan-party plans to Butterbeer recipes to help you celebrate the event. But given the extreme level of secrecy surrounding the second-last film, what can parents know for sure about the content their little Hogwarts fans will be begging to see?
The first thing for sure is that HP7 will be long. JK Rowling’s book by the same name took more than 600 pages to tell the final story of the boy-wizard Harry Potter and his quest to find and destroy the magical horcruxes that helped the evil Voldemort keep his hold on life. Producer David Heyman says it wasn’t hard to decide that two films would be needed.
“Deathly Hallows is so rich, the story so dense and there is so much that is resolved that, after discussing it with J. K. Rowling, we came to the conclusion that two parts were needed.”
However even seeing this first part is going to be an epic event for some young viewers. The first cut, shown to a test audience in August ran for around 200 minutes – well over three hours. Ensure you bring plenty of chips and go easy on the fluids.
However HP7 will keep most young viewers pinned to their seats – for a number of reasons. Daniel Radcliffe, who plays Harry Potter, describes it as a ‘road movie’ given that the key characters spend most of the time on the run from Voldemort’s forces. “This is a journey of survival,” Radcliffe says, describing the perils Harry, Hermione and Ron face.
“They know that every day is going to be hard and full of anger and fear and deep, deep worry.” Director David Yates who has helmed four Harry Potter films agrees the final installments are dark and brimming with emotional tension. “There are moments in this battle, which are very visceral and frightening and percussive,” he says.
Given that HP7 is something of a war-time film with large parts of the wizarding population in hiding or under threat, it’s worth considering whether your youngest viewers might benefit from waiting for a DVD screening. At least at home you can press pause.
What many Christians want to know, thought, is where HP7 will land spiritually. Undoubtedly the same film will draw cheers from one side of this particular audience while eliciting boos from the other. The declaration by the acting head of divinity at St Andrews University that this latest Harry Potter is ‘Christ-like’ because he encourages Biblical values, has to be balanced against the views of congregation members at Christ Community Church in New Mexico where Rowling’s books have been burned for promoting ‘Satanic darkness’. As always, your viewpoint will depend on how you see the series as a whole. That said the film certainly provides at least one useful talking point.
JK Rowling’s appointment as a producer has ensured that the book’s themes remain untouched, and the producers and test viewers agree it remains especially faithful to the book. It’s no surprise then that HP7 has our mortality in its sites. Harry enters still reeling from the death of almost every mentor he possessed, and Voldemort’s own constant attempts on his life. In fact from books one to seven, death has emerged as the fundamental recurring theme.
In her final volume JK Rowling had Harry and Hermione discover two inscriptions while searching for insights in Godric’s Hollow: “Where your treasure is, there will your heart also be” (Matthew 6:21) and “The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death” (1 Corinthians 15:26). Clearly she wanted young Harry to come to terms with the day of his own demise, and we find him able to do so because of the prospect of life to come. If you haven’t already considered what you would say to your children about their own hope for life after death, then I would certainly have it worked out by the time the lights come up.