Review: We are Wizards (2008)

[Mark R. Leeper]

                         WE ARE WIZARDS
                (a film review by Mark R. Leeper)

     CAPSULE: The growing phenomenon of fandom of the
     Harry Potter books and films is examined in several
     of its manifestations in this documentary.  From
     four-year-old "Wizard Rock" punk rock stars to the
     Warner Brothers battle to close down the web sites
     of fans of their own films director Josh Koury looks
     at the multiple threads of the Potter fandom movement.
     He goes back and forth among the threads, but he
     could have used a few more thread and his camera was
     not always on the most interesting material.
     Rating: low +1 (-4 to +4) or 5/10

Somewhere in another part of the forest, where Muggles like me do
not see it, there has grown a huge fandom for Harry Potter.  I
mean, if you think that "Star Wars" had a big fan base, it was
Yoda-sized compared to Potter fandom.  If you thought "Star Trek"
had an active fandom, they were Hortas compared to Potter fandom.
WE ARE WIZARDS examines the growing phenomenon of Harry Potter
fandom, but sadly not nearly with the breadth that we might have
hoped for.  WE ARE WIZARDS is a new documentary that examines eight
or nine threads of the Harry Potter phenomenon and follows people
who are major figures in the subculture of fans.

The inspiration for WE ARE WIZARDS could have been Roger Nygard's
TREKKIES.  That film was an examination of many of the various
breeds of Star Trek Fandom.  But Nygard's film had a lot more scope
and covered a lot more threads of its movement.  This film is more
diffuse and follows three or four Harry Potter rock bands, some
people who maintain fan web sites, a religious zealot who is
convinced that kids reading fantasy stories about wizards will
destroy the fabric of the country, etc.  They form a mosaic of the
fandom that has come out of J. K. Rowling's books and people
reacting to it.

One Harry Potter rock group is the Hungarian Horntails.  They are
made up of two children: Darius Wilkins, age seven at the time the
film was made; and Holden Wilkins, age four.  These two kids seems
to be rock stars in spite of the fact that at this age they can do
little more than scream songs like "Dragon Rock Rules" while Darius
runs his hand over a guitar making sound but not music.  The lyrics
for that song seem to be just yelling the title phrase into the
microphones over and over again.  It is remarkable that they are
rock stars at such a young age and have a large following, but it
may say more about their fans than it does about them themselves.

Examples of their music can be found at
<http://www.myspace.com/thehungarianhorntails>

Another thread has self-appointed religious advocate and cult
expert Caryl Matrisciana warning of the extreme dangers of children
being seduced into the dark world of the occult by Harry Potter.
Matrisciana made an anti-Potter film on what she calls "the dangers
and realities of witchcraft."  She does not specify here exactly
what specific dangers she sees, but she seems to imply that
witchcraft really exists and that letting children read the Potter
books gives them over to what she calls "the dark world of
vampires, lizards, serpents,..." Her world is more frightening than
theirs is.

Director Josh Koury shows us other wizard rock bands including
Harry and the Potters which offers not one but two Harry Potters,
on a younger Potter and one an older one.  Other groups are Draco
and the Malfoys, and The Whomping Willows.  And we meet Heather
Lawver who ran Potter fandom website until Warner Brothers lived up
to their name and threatened fans not to use copyright material,
which is just about everything about Potter.  Lawver responded by
organizing an international boycott of Warner Brothers Potter
materials.

There is probably much more material that Koury does not show us
that would be more of interest than some of what he does.  For
reasons known best to him he chooses to have us see Darius and
Holden playing like most children do and sometimes arguing in the
backseat of their car.  He cannot have been that surprised that the
brothers behave like other children of their age even if they are
rock stars.  Why Koury thinks the audience needs to see it is a
mystery.  A little Wizard Rock seems to go a long way, and not
unexpectedly did not do a lot for my Puccini-loving ears.

Koury far too much seems to have just let the camera run on his
subjects.  There is no story to the film as there is with a
documentary such as HOOP DREAMS.  Instead we just see people doing
their thing.  And their thing too frequently fails to seem
noteworthy.  I came away from the film wanting to tell cult-expert
Caryl Matrisciana that just because these kids say they are wizards
does not mean that there is really anything magical about them.
And I think I would like to tell the kids the same thing.  I rate
WE ARE WIZARDS low +1 on the -4 to +4 scale or 5/10.

Film Credits: <http://tinyurl.com/weRwizards>


					Mark R. Leeper
					mleeper at optonline.net
					Copyright 2008 Mark R. Leeper