In one sentence, "The Crimes of Grindelwald" is a phoenix elegy dedicated to the interwar period.
1.
At Grindelwald's assembly, the ancient wizarding family sees the coming future. Second World War. Grindelwald said wizards had to stop WWII; what he didn't say was that a Muggle WWII would mean the end of wizards - and he was right about that.
Muggles created modernity, and modernity was at its worst during World War II. In Grindelwald's vision, Jews lined up into concentration camps, where they would be sent down the assembly line to die in the gas chambers by the millions. Destruction greater than any magic was unleashed by Muggle science, and the mushroom cloud of the atomic bomb rose.
Modernity will be the end of the wizard. Because in Rowling's pen, the wizarding community originally symbolized a nostalgic, more classical and warm order.
The International Statute of Secrecy was originally based on pre-modern human society. A community can hide itself and isolate itself from the outside world, of course, because it possesses (does) has (person) magic (opens) law (hangs), but in the final analysis, it is because the pre-modern social order is inherently diverse, and each community is originally It is fragmented and isolated to a certain extent.
In the modern and postmodern world, the population is accurately counted, the tentacles of the state machine penetrate the community organization and reach all individuals, and even cameras are located on every street corner, and all personal information is aggregated and stored in databases, Shared by the Internet, any speech on the ubiquitous social network may spread, accumulate, and explode.
In such a world, is there really a community that can hide itself forever and be isolated from the outside world forever?
The kind of social order that Rowling nostalgia for, the kind of self-contained community in which almost everyone knows each other, and everyone goes to the same school, can only exist in a soap bubble called magic. , and this soap bubble will eventually burst in the face of modernity.
2.
World War II finally broke out, bringing with it a strange world. So the film "The Crimes of Grindelwald" is like a phoenix elegy, dedicated to the interwar period, to the last days of old Europe.
That's why I love the character of Rita Lestrange so much.
The Lestrange family in the movie is so Shakespeare. Desire and rape; the strong blood feud between generations of ancient families; blood and child exchange; and Rita's brother-killing - a tragic ending that was driven by coincidence and was already destined by character, and used the rest of her life to bear it. .
Rita's emotional line, on the other hand, has a strong, Victorian style. Reminds me of the introverted, silent and ambiguous loves written by the Brontë sisters, those hesitant choices and long regrets. We may find out in later films why Rita later became her brother's fiancée; but we'll probably never know to whom exactly she said I love you at the end - more likely, at the same time, of course for two people.
The mix of Shakespeare and Victorian styles makes Rita Lestrange a profile of a dying old Europe.
One detail that stood out to me: At Grindelwald's rally, his Pureblood supporters still filled a hall. They were still civilized people with normal rationality, and the rally had a normal, public political atmosphere.
By the time of Voldemort, the supporters from the pure blood family could only stand in a small circle. With their hoods on, they no longer have any sense of reason, and the vibe goes from the political salon of a Parisian café to the villain of a fairy tale.
By the time the purebloods ended, there was no more Shakespeare or Victorian vibe. Those things that were really old-fashioned are long gone, and Voldemort's movement is just a parody of the pre-restoration in the modern era.
Rita, the last true Lestrange; her ill will to kill her baby brother, though not her heart; she has fallen in love with two people; she chose to die in battle, proving that blood is not enough to define her; She spent her alienated and sensitive but not completely lonely youth at Hogwarts, and finally used the ashes she turned into to commemorate the precious warmth of her youth; she came from Slytherin House.
3.
Grindelwald saw the future, and rightly so. He is also right that the status quo for wizards must change. But his path is impassable.
The most important keyword in the series "Fantastic Beasts" is "animal".
Freckles sees animals as people; too many people at the same time see people as animals—that's the overarching theme of the Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them series.
The dark side of modernity, represented by the Holocaust, regards people as animals or even simple numbers. But this is not unique to modernity, which simply provides more scientific systems, more efficient, and more ruthless tools.
The witch hunt represented by "Salem" is also one of the motifs of the "Harry Potter" series. The "Second Salem" in the first "Fantastic Beasts" is a pre-modern version that classifies humans as aliens and denigrates them as "inhumans."
And in Grindelwald's personal remarks, Muggles are also "inhumans", animals - to quote him, "livestock".
Nagini said that pure-blood wizards used to hunt people like her as a pastime of hunting animals.
The alienation of humans to animals, in the first part, the wizard turned into silence; and in the second part, the one who almost gave me the creepy feeling was Nagini. This setting is so cruel that I don’t want to say more, it’s unbelievable The beautiful and kind Asian lady is really Voldemort's pet in the Harry Potter series.
The circus scene is the most intuitive and infuriating display of the theme of the "Fantastic Beasts" series. Humans and animals are displayed together in cages, called monsters, and displayed to the audience below the stage as entertainment. Remember the resistance, humiliation and unwillingness of Miss Nagini when she was ordered by the circus foreman to perform "turning into a snake"? Is it her fault to go from here to the Nagini who died under the sword of Neville?
There is no hope that Grindelwald uses premodern "man as animal" to counter modernity's "man as animal".
But... can "seeing animals as people" like Little Freckles really stop "seeing people as animals"? These two are just textual confrontation, and there is no direct logical relationship.
The transformation of man into an animal, or the alienation of man, has touched on the question that the film "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them" is completely incapable of answering. It's good that the little freckles "see animals as people", and there is nothing wrong with animal protection (as long as they don't allow others to eat dog meat), but this answer has nothing to do with the question.
But this kind of answer that essentially uses love to generate electricity is already the limit that a movie like "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find" can do. It is already very valuable to ask this question, and the answer can't be more demanding.
4.
The core reason for the hopelessness of Grindelwald's road is that, no matter pre-modern or modern, the road of alienating people into "inhumans" will be infinitely slippery. On this path, it is impossible to stop at a fixed standard. There will always be new standards that divide more and more people into "non-humans" - until you find yourself on the other side of the standard line. .
This involves the controversy that existed before the movie was released: Is what Grindelwald advocates for pure-blooded wizarding power?
What Grindelwald himself advocated should not be pure blood wizarding power, but wizarding power. Even if there is a false element to what Queenie said, it is undeniable that he is at least not disgusted with Queenie and Jacob's intermarriage.
However, dissatisfied with the status quo of wizards is mainly the ancient wizarding families, these ancient wizarding families are pure blood. Inevitably, sorcerer power eventually slips into pure-blood wizard power.
After witnessing the horrors of the First World War, it is logical for some wizards to think that they must rule over Muggles and prevent the horrors of the next war. The argument that Dumbledore provided Grindelwald in his early years, "Wizards rule Muggles for Muggles' self-interest", naturally has a market after the horrific and meaningless sacrifices of World War I -- especially, The film is set in France, where the senselessness of World War I felt most profoundly.
But, in Voldemort's time, there was no logic to ruling Muggle landslides in order to deprive Muggle-born wizards of their human rights. The claim in Deathly Hallows that Muggle-born wizards stole magic from pure-blood wizards is an extremely botched conspiracy theory that can't fool anyone.
This landslide can actually be seen as a metaphor for the "inhuman" landslide process of Europeans starting from colonialism.
The argument that "Wizards rule Muggles for Muggle self-interest" is a complete copy of the "white burden" argument in colonialism that "Europeans rule other races for other races' self-interest". And in the interwar period, people outside Europe were inferior races, and finally the landslide became that Jews inside Europe were inferior races too.
This is what I most agree with in Arendt's critique of colonialism: concentration camps and genocide, which were originally tailored for the colonies, were finally used on the heads of "inhumans" identified from within the Europeans themselves .
The year Grindelwald was expelled and traveled to England to meet Dumbledore was around 1899. That year, the Boer War broke out, and the British invented concentration camps in this war.
Sometimes I wonder if Grindelwald left England and went to South Africa and saw that in the British concentration camps, it was no longer blacks or Indians, but white Dutch-speaking people who were imprisoned like animals; would he remember? Does the "Wizard's Burden" he and Dumbledore talk about realize where the road ends up slipping? Will you see that your appeal, which has a profound rationality, will eventually die at the hands of Voldemort without any rationality and meaning?
5.
The first setting of the film is the United States. This is the fringe of an interwar world, with cars flowing through the streets of New York City, music playing on gramophones, and electric lights.
The second background is France. The speeches at the political salon, the depression after the last war is intertwined with the fear of the next war, the restlessness of the future is intertwined with the nostalgia for the past, the old Europe is still prosperous and romantic, but it is coming to an end.
So it seems to me that the setting for the next movie should be in the center of the interwar vortex... Germany. Whether discussing how humans alienate into animals, or whether it is a greater good and at what price to use wizarding rule to stop the cruelty and madness of Muggles, there is probably no better stage than interwar Germany. Imagine a wizard from an ancient German pure-blood family, ancestors who were vassals of the Holy Roman Empire before the International Statute of Secrecy, and witnesses the shattered Germany and the stormtroopers on the streets after the defeat of World War I, and then he/she hears Grindelwald said it was our duty to stop them and our duty to rule them.
Now that I have started to lust, I might as well say a few more words. Although it is completely impossible, if we really want to start a world during the interwar period, can the perspective of the fourth film after Germany move further eastward? In the shade of Hogwarts, a wizard from far away Russia misses his/her St. Petersburg, and that ancient city now has a young name, Leningrad.
6.
Finally, let's talk about two pairs of CPs.
Queenie and Jacob... This pair is really, really abusive.
The current order of wizards prohibits intermarriage between wizards and Muggles. And she loves Jacob, is that wrong? correct. So, is it wrong to change the current order of wizards? Not wrong either.
Such a simple and powerful, irrefutable logic reminds me of Rosa Luxemburg in Arendt's writings. In my impression, Arendt wrote (can't remember the exact words), Rosa Luxemburg found that she could not survive in this world with her own morality, so she chose that she had to change the world.
The current order does not allow him to marry the person he loves, so the current order must change, there is nothing wrong with that. To change the current order of wizards, you must join a social movement that seeks change, because the change of social order is never something that individuals can do - and there is no problem.
Of course, Queenie is completely impossible to compare with Rosa Luxemburg - the reason is that the wizarding community is so closed and divided, and the only social movement she can choose to join is Grindelwald (but Grindelwald is the only option). No matter how bad the road is, at least it can barely be regarded as a social movement, and it is completely incomparable with the inexplicable small group of Voldemort who is not even cult/gangster/terrorism).
And just like that, every step of the way came right, beginning with dimly lit parlors and gramophone music, Muggle pastry chefs stunned watching mind readers cook with wands; then a scene that was supposed to wipe the memory with the scars. The rain that went away, the kisses under the transparent umbrella that the wand opened seemed like it never happened; and the end was an unbreakable oath for the greater good, and a fire that burned everything.
But in the end, wizards and Muggles could marry after all, though not through Grindelwald. We can't accuse Queenie of not looking at this future from God's perspective, but making her own efforts to seek change in the wrong direction.
I just hope this couple has a better ending, Queenie sees it's ok for Grindelwald to see Muggles as animals, mind readers after all, but what about the unbreakable oath... but hopefully still There is a way. It seems that there is also an unbreakable oath in this book that may actually be broken (…), and even Dumbledore’s blood alliance can be solved, right?
7.
This "Fantastic Beasts" is too cruel, and from the perspective of the determined structure of this film, it may only be more abusive in the future, so the pair of Little Freckles and Tina are even more heartwarming.
The emotional portrayal of this pair has always been a sense of restraint and deep still water, and also has a Victorian style. However, the so-called still water is deep, and subtlety is the way of expression, and the inner emotional motivation is indispensable. The emotional motivation of this pair in the previous part is actually not very clear.
However, this one is also a very short and subtle portrayal, which completely makes up for this short board. Tina really read the book Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find It! Using the same method as the little freckles to subdue the Chinese monsters is really emmm... These two people are actually serious Xueba characters, the love of Xueba is probably the paper you wrote, I can read every word of it.
Although Little Freckles tried hard to refuse, she still couldn't stop saying the phrase "your eyes are like salamanders", combined with the explanation of this description in front of Little Freckles, it can be regarded as the best I have ever heard. One of the beautiful dialogues. Tina actually listened to the meaning explained earlier by Little Freckles, and knew that the image that Little Freckles used was salamander, the real hammer of her soul mate.
Your eyes are like fire burning in dark water.
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