And Now, the Chamber of Secrets!

My second real interaction with the Harry Potter series gave me more of an understanding to the phenomena. Rowlings has done a good job of giving just enough information to whet our appetites for the intrigue that the world of wizarding offers. Although many of the details sparkle, I’m very disappointed in the plotline of Chamber of Secrets. The film seems like a brooding adolescent version of Sorcerers Stone. Not as quick, but beefier, and with more anger.

I barely recognized Kenneth Branagh, although I knew that he was in the film. He has never matched his work in Henry V, although in this particular performance, he was very good.

It seems wrong to attack the films for the use of sorcery, based on my love for Lord of The Rings, so I would like to address the underlying issues of the plot. Hopefully I can do better than some others dealing with the same film. For instance, Spirituality and Practice didn't do any analysis of the deeper issues in their review, and Crosswalk only deals with whether or not the sorcery is a problem. My take on the sorcery is that parents must make decisions based on their children and the Holy Spirit. There are teenagers I know that couldn't handle the spiders, and elementary kids who could easily grasp the deeper issues in the film while accepting the magical elements for what they are. Diana Saenger singles out fundamentalists for bashing Sorcerers Stone, but agrees that the 2nd movie is too dark.

Because there is no explicit spirituality in the world of Harry Potter, we have significantly more liberty in drawing spiritual lessons from it than with, say, Constantine or Hellboy. Even the sourcery is more of a tool than real sourcery, as Alan Jacobs mentions.

Cinematically, a lot of criticism has been piled on Director Chris Columbus for not pacing the film better and for sticking too closely to the details of the book. Although I can understand the argument, I (and many other readers) prefer translations to adaptations when moving from beloved books into movies. Although I have not read the Potter series, I have a feeling that liberalities taken by a director would be met by the wrath of millions of children. And Columbus does such a good job with the cinematography, special effects and casting that his other faults can be winked at.

As I said in a previous post, Harry Potter seems to pull at more strings than simply wizards, or bullying, or a good story. There is somewhat of the deeper pull that we experience when a story touches a deeper cultural vein. Harry is Harry, but he is also a little bit Wort, and a little bit Frodo and a little bit Prince Cor. He’s a golden boy like LeBron (King) James, and Phyllis Morris connects him with Godric of Finchdale. In any case, Harry is easily seen as an archetype with messianic overtones.

A big portion of the over-arching tension in Chamber of Secrets is not whether or not Hermione or Harry will die because they may be Half-Bloods, but whether or not young Mr. Potter is the Heir of Salazar Slytherin, and in fact about to pour judgment out on the impure wizard world, knowingly or not. Harry seems to be the only wizard powerful enough to be the heir, so he is threatened with the fate of Darth Vadar, savior turned Dark Lord. Rather than run away from the ostracization, Potter chooses to discover if he is the heir, and if not he, than who. Steven Tigner and Alan Jacobs both connect Harry’s struggle to that of Christ, although both are tracing the overarching theme of the series, there are applications in Chamber of Secrets as well. This particular film reminds me most vividly of Christ’s temptations at the beginning of his ministry. He was faced with a decision between doing what was right and doing what was convenient for Him at the time. Even Harry’s tempter has parallels with Satan mentioned briefly by Tigner, but certainly not yet really explored. The rebellion of Lord Voldemort is the reason why he is bad, but his association with snakes is unquestionably playing on cultural sensibilities.

Pungente and Williams look at the conflict in our lives between good and evil, and force us to assimilate Harry’s conflict with our own. The very real choice between the easy road and the right road faces believers daily. Seeking God’s face is hard work sometimes, as much as we love Him. And who wants to carry a cross?

Harry's conflict about being a parselmouth can help us understand some of the conflicts in our own life. Although Harry decided in the first film to avoid being associated with questionable students and questionable houses, the connection does not go away. He struggles throughout the film with choosing to do right. In the same way, as believers, we have chosen our side, but struggle daily to do it again. Note that we are to carry our cross daily, and only when we do that, are we closely following Christ.