2001
Opening Image:
Closing Image:
We start the seven year, 8-film journey charting Harry Potter's development from neglected, underfed, friendless and underprivileged to his ascension as a knowledgable, capable and person-of-import here, looking up into a bleak night sky with a sign announcing the plainness of his origins. It's always there, in the back of Harry's (and by extension, the audience's mind), that Harry came from an ordinary (and, in many respects quite unhealthy) place; and it's somewhere he could always slide back into. Indeed, each film begins with him again back at Privet drive. But, inside this opening image is embedded a clue to his potential, a magical owl; a person in animal form who is looking out for him. Indeed, in the final shot the angle has changed; we are above the clatter of the world and looking straight at the distant magical castle. We are inspired to dream as Harry dreams: that no matter our origins and previous traumas and no matter our tendency to return to them, we have a greater potential, and, perhaps, we have loved ones looking out after us.
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