For the last festival of the summer, the forecast was rain. All weekend. So when three friends and I piled into a Ford Fiesta, to head south to Bestival on the Isle of Wight, we were well-armed with wellies, wetwipes and waterproofs.

But while the Great British Summer did not completely fail to disappoint, and by Sunday the inevitable mudbath had ensued, the sun actually shone for most of what was a wonderful weekend.

The Isle of Wight is a bit of a trek, so a smooth journey left us feeling quite smug. We’d figured out that rolling our bags in a caterpillar motion, rather than heaving the booze-laden rucksacks on and off our backs, was an efficient way to edge up the hour-long queue into the site. Light pollution meant pitching our tents in whatever space we could find was surprisingly easy. We even made it into the arena in time to watch Santigold tear up the Big Top.

The music was a pretty eclectic collection of dance, old-school hip-hop, indie, ska and pop.  Something for everyone, but enough to get the usual case of missing-out syndrome that plagues every big festival. While I managed to miss, amongst others, PJ Harvey, Frank Turner and Diplo, the crowd were up for all of the awesome acts I did see.

As headliners go Pendulum were probably quite good though I had too much gin to remember. The Cure had me sprinting from the portaloos queue to leap around to ‘Just Like Heaven’ with a complete stranger. The fact that Robert Smith now resembles an overgrown child who has spent too much time with his mother’s make up, and then walked the wrong way through a wind machine, had me worried about how some of my all-time favourite songs would turn out. The two and a half hour set did drag into self-indulgence in the middle, but enough classics were belted out to make it truly memorable. 

On Sunday night, Bjork was resplendent and bizarre with a giant orange afro topped by an enormous blue fin. She was backed by a female choir, and a head-spinning array of graphics that led my friend to comment that we were having geology and biology lessons. While the ethereal music got repetitive at times, the crowd were still hyped enough to leap around to ‘Independence Day’ at the end.

Other musical highlights included mainstage dubstep from Magnetic Man, a healthy dose of old school rap from Public Enemy, Robyn owning the stage in a catsuit and enormous platforms, and Village People getting tens of thousands of people doing the YMCA.

Bestival is much more than music though – it’s the only festival I know that so wholeheartedly embraces fancy dress. Everyone turned into ‘Rockstars, Divas and Popstars’ on Saturday. I did a passable version of 80s Madonna with the help of fishnets, black lace gloves and cardboard crucifix jewellery, but there were very impressive efforts – troupes of blonde teenage girls dressed as Kiss, numerous incarnations of David Bowie, and a tiny toddler turned into Freddie Mercury.

I loved the roller disco, though it may not have been the most sensible idea – my friend was on crutches for the whole weekend. 80s aerobics legend Mr. Motivator popped up on three different stages on Sunday exhorting all the able-bodied amongst us to get motivated. The Robin Hill Country Park left much of its rambling wooded gardens and adventure playgrounds open to get lost in. There was even a W.I. Tea Tent with a glorious panoramic view over the site.

Waiting for the bus to the ferry in driving rain at 7am on Monday morning, having abandoned my semi-collapsed tent after a wild, windy night, almost had me declare, “I’m too old for this!” But fortunately Bestival was enough fun to convince me that I’ll be putting up with tickets pushing £200, overflowing portaloos, the beginnings of trench foot, and not washing for 4 days for a few years yet.

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A lot of people lost their skepticism about the potential for blockbusters to be imaginative, first class art last summer, with the arrival of Christopher Nolan’s Inception. If I had been old enough to appreciate it at the time, my moment would have been six years earlier, when Warner Brothers took the bold move of appointing a little known but ingenious Mexican auteur, maker of the raunchy Y Tu Mamá También, to direct the third installment of their mechanical money-making Harry Potter franchise. I don’t think any of the subsequent episodes have reached the heights of Cuarón’s achievement in The Prisoner of Azkaban, but with the exception of the embarassingly casual Deathly Hallows Part 1, all have undoubtedly benefited from his injection of a sinister side to complement the joyful aspects of the world of magic. He permanently darkened the series’ visual tone no end, whilst still retaining the fun and fantasy we loved Rowling’s books for. Yet the story’s finale, dominated by the battle to defeat Lord Voldemort, hardly leaves much room for laughs. Yates was wise to look back to Cuarón’s work for guidance; when it has come to carving out a feeling of dread in this family-friendly franchise, Cuarón’s portrayal of the Death Eaters has been unparalleled. Azkaban should go down as the finest film in the series.

Jacob Williamson on Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

 

I have long been an advocate of The Order of the Phoenix as the best Potter novel; I was cheered to discover that the fifth film was its equal in spirit. It’s in this film that the loyal audience must quickly grow up, and is forced to acknowledge that what started as a quirky Dickensian magical and heroic world may be harbouring taint, perversion, and loss. Here the film that separates the two worlds — magical and non-magical — is split and mixed. A violent temper, emotional unsteadiness, a sense of estrangement, and growing paranoia set the emotional tone for the film, which centres on a character slowly becoming possessed, and simultaneously undergoing the worst of puberty. Thus introducing the film’s best and most mockable line: ‘I feel so ANGRY ALL the TIME.’

At a running time of 138 minutes, The Order of the Phoenix is shorter than its predecessors, and, for being the biggest book in print, pedantic fans may complain at the omissions. But David Yates succeeds in capturing the brooding mood of the book, and sensitively translates Harry’s internal warring between good and evil. Though the cinematography is showy (especially in the climaxing skirmish in the Ministry of Magic), Nicholas Hooper’s scoring of the film deserves praise. Hooper uses the obligatory John Williams’ theme but introduces a buoyant and thumping melody for the Order’s broom journey to Grimmauld Place, a delicate chimed and slowly unfurling theme for Harry’s moment with Cho, and a moving counterpointed string piece (‘Possession’) for Harry’s ordeal in the Ministry which Hooper conducted himself.

The Order of the Phoenix also introduces Rowling’s best villain (Voldemort is as un-scary as a puppet demon): Dolores Umbridge. Umbridge is a squat, pink-and-kitten encrusted bureaucratic witch with a glottal tick and a lust for making boys cut themselves. Never has detention been so dark. And to crown it off, Harry’s cut off his mane, and, looking fanciable, gets his first kiss.

Christy Edwall on Harry Potter and The Order of the Phoenix

 

‘Mummy, look! She conjured a Warner Bros sign!’ Embarrassingly, I owe this somewhat harsh reality check to the child sitting next to me at the local Odeon. Helena Bonham-Carter opens the final Harry Potter film with a swish of her wand, producing that WB emblem so definitive of the perpetual void between Rowling’s wonderful books and the less-than-wonderful Potter ‘movies’.

The seven Harry Potter books provided so much more than just the cinematic presentation of a magical world. I felt like I had been let in on a secret that no-one else knew about. Yes, Harry Potter was Rowling’s, but Rowling’s ownership of the books and any apparent concrete ‘meaning’ ceased upon publication.

Most importantly, the Potter films were just too cheesy. Allow me to refer you to the infamous ‘Tent-Dancing Scene’ of the penultimate film — the moment at which Harry and Hermione decide to abandon their worries about a fallen magical world, in order to indulge in a spot of foxtrot. Both unnecessary and, more importantly, absent in the book . I nearly had to reach for the nearest Horcrux to vomit into.

The films were good. Great, even. The special effects and star-studded cast were brilliant. However, Rowling inspired her readers to establish their own magical world, using her language and their imaginations. The subsequent films are too ambitious. They occupy both Rowling’s and her readers’ roles, denying Potter fans the opportunity to imagine what their time at Hogwarts will really be like.

Harriet Clarfelt

Harry Potter films have been meted out over the years with a regularity which is sometimes comforting and sometimes the opposite – where did all that time go? The big budget, big business aspect of the franchise has its advantages – beautiful actors, beautiful effects – and its problems: the quality of acting and writing which drops disappointingly at times (not being the areas which rake in the money). The sheer impersonal scale of it all, which is very different from being involved in the books themselves, especially having grown up with them as children, can also be a little off-putting. For an adaption which truly throws itself into the books – the in-jokes, the flaws, the fun – I’d say the University of Michigan’s ‘A Very Potter Musical’ (see Youtube) sticks close, perhaps closer, to their spirit.

Hattie Soper

The beauty of the first two Harry Potter books is the creation and destruction of a perfect world: a point the first two films miss completely.

It’s easy to forget how the books start, a child suffering from a brutal reality (and a life in a cupboard under the stairs) is taken to a world of perfect fantasy. But this world only lasts so long. The first book ends with the man who killed Harry’s parents emerging from the back of the head of a teacher who was supposed to be protecting him, the complete subversion of the safety we enjoyed.

The second book pushes this unease and terror further. The school is undergoing a series of racist attacks. The perpetrator is not an external threat, but one of the students, a child trying to kill other children. Harry and his friends both act as accusers and accused, as the children tear their friendships apart in fear.

But the films just don’t take it seriously. The Dursleys are purely comic, the cupboard under the stairs roomy. The second film is worse. For me the second book is thematically darker than any other in the series, but the second film captures none of this.

Perhaps the greatest of all director Chris Columbus’ crimes is that through both the first two films the whole thing still seems like a bit of fun. I am not living in some fantasy world where I see the books as great works of literature. They are children’s books, meant for children. What the films fundamentally lack is the way that Rowling treats her audience with respect. We are spoon fed everything because Columbus deems us incapable of keeping up.

Luke Partridge on Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone and Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

The Harry Potter films (and, indeed, most book-to-film adaptations) were often criticized for their exclusion of key book elements. This was put down to a variety of factors that mainly boiled down to running time – the films could only be a certain length, meaning that a lot of material had to be left by the wayside. So when it was announced that the final Harry Potter book, The Deathly Hallows, was to be split into two films, I was interested. Perhaps now all of J.K. Rowling’s ideas could be presented fully, as they deserved.

Unfortunately, this didn’t quite work out. Both halves of The Deathly Hallows feel slightly stretched, with lots of information and characters from the books shoehorned in for fan service (yes Bill Weasley, I’m looking at you). This feels a little contrived, and requires a lot of exposition that slows down both films’ pace. The overload of characters also means that great actors like Jim Broadbent and Maggie Smith have very little to do by the end, and others like Bill Nighy turn up for about 5 seconds then disappear. This is a waste of their talent, and unfortunately places a lot of the acting duty on the heads of the three inexperienced leads. Also, I hate to bring this up, but does Voldemort really have to say ‘Nyeaaahhhhh!’ so many times?

These films pull off being both overfull and stretched beyond their natural limits, and I was disappointed. I’m not saying they’re awful, but they’re not great, and not really the send-off that the Harry Potter generation deserves.

Huw Fullerton on Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: part one and two