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"Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" was almost a Diwali release in London. The blockbuster whipped up the same kind of fan frenzy that one would see at a film premiere here.
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People queue up outside the Odeon cinema in Leicester Square for the first public showing of the Harry Potter movie.
LONDON IN mid November 2001 is just the place for the Madrasi. (Sorry, Chennai is still unknown here). Never mind the winds from the North Sea, which chill you through every bone on the streets. Or the temperature plunging down to one degree centigrade, when the white grass winks at you. Open the window, and you see the fat black cat washing itself with true British phlegm on the shed roof below. The heating system has broken down in your Chennai correspondent's temporary headquarters at The Grove,
Central Finchley. But she continues to be as chirpy as the robin on the golden bough across the window, or the sparrows that are no more in Chennai.
Why? Is it the infectious bonhomie of the frozen sardines packing and unpacking themselves on the subway Tube? They scrupulously avoid all eye contact, whereas staring is the way of life for you in Chennai town. They speak in whispers — if at all, while your neighbours back home are comfortable only with high decibellage. You could feel homesick for the push-n-shove culture, totally missing in this finicky pretence of being solitary islands on bus and train.
Yet, you feel that good ol' Rudyard Kipling was completely wrong when he declared that the East and the West can never meet. Because here and now you witness their level meeting ground through the cold blasts on London squares and London lanes. The dailies and tabloids, as also TV and radio newscasts may holler about Afghanistan being riddled with bullets, Britain facing the worst recession ever, anthrax nightmares across the globe, terrorism threats in the country, air bus crash in New York... . But this November is no time for such virtual realities. The actual drama lies not in Kabul or Croatia, but at the Odeon Cinema in Leicester Square, where little wizard Harry Potter shall wave his wand and demolish all seen and unseen evil. Whooooooshhhhhh.
I overheard a talk on Guy Fawkes Day about making effigies of the two Big Bs — Bush and Blair. It is Harry who is the Saviour in the talk of the town. Bookshops on Charing Cross Road showcase not just the Potter books, but more importantly, Potter gadgetry. No price is too high for the wand that lights up as it waves, the bed lamp with wings, quidditch broom plus cleaning apparatus, a writing kit with parchment and feather (just the thing for the computer age), and much more, oh, much, much more.
A huge poster looms above Leicester Square over the Odeon cinema, heralding the arrival of "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone". On the Underground, you see Potter posters big and small on every line, and people reading Potter books through their journey, one even on the escalator. Takeaway cards are everywhere to proclaim the momentous happening. Two days before the film release (is it a film or the Second Coming?)
Two Potter fans arrive at a London cinema for a showing of the film "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone".
I walk into a surreal scenario, before the Odeon Cinema House on Leicester Square, of snaking queues of children in black wizard robes, tall conical hats spangled with gold and silver stars, for advance booking or for watching the trailers I never found out. Adults are not exempt from the cult. I see bunches of grown ups in cloaks green and purple, with hats as tall as steeples, waving wands with wholly un-English abandon (Oops, are they umbrellas after all?)
I am in London to attend the annual Regus Film Festival. But that pales into insignificance before Pottermania. After all, people don't tog up in fancy Indian dress to attend "Monsoon Wedding", or in 1930s costumes to watch the period drama "Gosford Park". (We know the Chennai-ite can turn up to see a celluloid Mookambika in orange, and Sabarimala pageants in black. And remember the pujas for the TV screen just before Ramanand Sagar, sorry, I mean, the Ramayana series on TV not so long ago? And didn't we see Sivaji Ganesans and MGRs, now Rajanikants and Kamalhaasans, or Ajiths and Arjuns in milling queues before the box office, LIVE?)
By the way, do you know that advance bookings for Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone exceed 900,000 pounds in the U.K? (It is 34,000 in Japan, while Italy has done unprecedented preselling). Experts believe that Harry is going to be the biggest grosser ever; he will outstrip the "Titanic" and whatever else.
British actor Daniel Radcliffe (centre) with newcomers Emma Watson (left) and Rupert Grint (right).
Tossed by the Harry hurricane, newspapers have been steadily dishing out previews, reviews, predictions, announcements, and analyses. The costumes have been highly commended. The casting gets unmitigated praise (Richard Harris, Maggie Smith, Ian Hart, Alan Stickman jostle with young Emma Watson as the ebullient Hermione, and Daniel Radcliffe as the irresistible Potter). There is relief for keeping it all English-English after all, and not allowing American smarts to tamper with this very British pie. (Spielberg? He's good for jaws and claws, not for the Potter habitat.)
However, the poor director gets his share of the flak for a too strict toeing of the book line, and not being imaginative enough in building up to crescendos and climaxes. But the reviewer also knows that any tampering with the text would unleash screams and howls, because what we have here is a brand and product, not art and auteurship.
Critics also fault the score as being deafening rather than evocative. But here they may be totally wrong. Young ears may pick out modulations inaccessible to dull adults, in general unable to distinguish the noise from the music that young people go for.
Potter fans being entertained as they wait outside the Odeon cinema.
The vital connection for the Madrasi is of course that "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" is almost a Diwali release. I am told that the black market in London is gearing up new strategies to deal with this phenomenon. What more do you need to know to realise just why the Chennai-ite feels perfectly at home in mid autumn London?
GOWRI RAMNARAYAN
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