It is late in the summer.
Harry Potter( Daniel Radcliffe, making his third appearance in the leading
role) is
at the Dursleys House in Privet
Drive, ready for his third year at Hogwarts School
of Witchcraft and Wizardry, when a bully
relative demeans his father's memory, making Harry to lose his temper.
As a result, Harry violates the rule of student witches and wizards, causing
the offending aunt to inflate as a dirigible and float away into the night sky
on an stream of invectives. It is a delightful opening to a film with far more
serious issues to explore and frightening obstacles to overcome. Sirius
Black (Gary Oldman), imprisoned at Azkaban for complicity in the murder of Harry's
parents, has escaped, and is looking for Harry. The soul-stealing prison guards
called 'Dementors' (Latin for mind-removers) are searching for Black
everywhere, but when he and Harry meet, there are revelations which change
everything.
The
symbolism in the film is
fascinating. Rowling is responsible for a lot of it, but Cuarón has used
symbolism as a visual tool to alert the audience to impending danger and to
keep tensions high. Traditionally, black-feathered birds such as ravens, crows,
and vultures all have negative images associated with them; they are usually
used to represent carnage, bloodshed and battle; they are thought of in terms
of scavengers, messengers of the dead, and evil. Crows abound in this film, but
Cuarón has extended their traditional roles, turning them into symbols of the
Dementors, which fly around menacingly in black garments with feather-like
hems. Even when the Dementors are out of sight (they are not allowed on the
grounds of Hogwarts’ School) you can feel their presence in the crows.
Rowling's most obvious use
of symbolism is in the name she gives the escaped prisoner Sirius Black. Sirius
is a star in the constellation Canis Majoris (in mythology, Canis Majoris is
one of Orion's hunting dogs; the Greater Dog), the brightest star in the sky.
So, Sirius is also called the Dog Star, and everyone knows that the dog is
distinguished above all other inferior animals for intelligence, docility, and
attachment to man. Would she give such a name, with all its implications, to a
villainous character? Not likely. But she would give it to a wizard who could
change into a dog.
Among the new visual images
are animal ghosts which wander the halls of Hogwart's Castle and the film's
realization of Buckbeak the Hippogriff, like Sirius, falsely accused and
condemned. Hermione Granger (Emma Watson), Ron Weasley (Rupert Grint) and all
of the established characters return. Led by Harry, all the students have
matured considerably, as you would expect of 13-year-olds; they are more
independent and self assured, more emotionally developed and far less childlike
in their reactions and bearing. Michael Gambon is new and effective as Aldus
Dumbledore, following the death of Richard Harris. Emma Thompson is wonderfully
wacky as Divination Professor Sybil Trelawney; who leaps from the pages of the
book and onto the screen as if Rowling had written the character specifically
for Thompson. Also new is Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor Remus Lupin
(David Thewles), who comes to Harry's aid in ways that might befit his Latin
name. Remus was the brother of the founder of Rome. In mythology, he was nursed by a
she-wolf; Lupin means wolf-like (wolf is Canis Lupis).