HBO Max has been betting on nostalgia since it launched its streaming platform. This was quite clear with Friends: The Reunion and The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air: The Reunion, but now it has its icing on the cake celebrating 20 years of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone with the documentary Back to Hogwarts.
With that in mind, it’s not wrong to say that the film aims to deliver an experience of emotion and a lot of love for the fans. And this task is successfully completed: Back to Hogwarts it is literally a journey through the affective memory not only of the audience, but also of the actors, filmmakers and producers involved in each of the films that make up the most magical film franchise in pop culture.
Who starts this journey towards nostalgia and the most magical story ever told in this millennium is Emma Watson, perhaps the most famous name involved in the franchise today. Famous for impersonating the most intelligent of witches, Hermione Granger, Watson strolls through the recording set of Harry Potter with a nostalgic smile, which carries emotion, but who is also very aware of the responsibility he carries in bringing together so many names there who built this universe full of fans today.
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As a documentary, the production may sound a bit rushed at first, with the events, narratives and other records being recounted with great enthusiasm. However, when the intention is to get close to the heart and bring memories and sensations to the surface, Back to Hogwarts brings the audience back to moments lived twenty or ten years ago, when the films of Harry Potter arrived in movie theaters and a single experience was created, which today will hardly be experienced again.
The documentary’s director, Eran Creevy, travels between the eight films that make up the franchise today reporting behind-the-scenes details through exclusive testimonials, deleted scenes and recordings made during the shooting. There is still breath to separate chapters exclusively for characters much loved by fans, such as Draco Malfoy or Gina Weasley, but that without releasing the love involved by the franchise as the guiding thread of the entire narrative.
There are visits among the saga’s landmark sets, backstage of the audition days, testimonials from iconic directors who have been through the films (such as Chris Columbus or the award-winning Alfonso Cuarón) and, of course, accounts of the main actors of Harry Potter. Everything here is built to sound like a true reunion of the Hogwarts gangs, and for that the special was recorded in the very studio where the films were shot, at Warner Bros.
The soundtrack here, the same one used in the eight chapters, performs the task of conducting the story from beginning to end, in the same way it is remembered and told by its interviewees. Everything is done with great care, revisiting memories that are sometimes good, and sometimes bad (such as the moment when Emma Watson and Rupert Grint remember having considered leaving the series), but the feeling that remains is precisely the nostalgia for a time that did not comes back more, but whose legacy is passed from generation to generation.
As well as Friends: The Reunion, The special Back to Hogwarts it doesn’t hurt when it comes to getting emotional even from fans who only followed the franchise’s films. The emotion is right, and the tears too. The film is a perfect blend of nostalgia with the familiar magic of the world of Harry Potter, whose result is nothing more than that desire to do the good old movie marathon again.
Back to Hogwarts guide this tour through the sentimental, sharing the emotions and agonies of these eight years that ended up marking the lives of millions of fans around the world. It’s what makes Harry Potter something as unique and powerful as it is today; this universe, full of magic, details and such an enveloping atmosphere, that with each passing day it conquers more and more people in every corner of the globe. The special shows this and further points out that there is no time to become a fan of pop culture’s greatest wizard: after all, Harry Potter it will forever be in our hearts.
Harry Potter: Back to Hogwarts can be watched in the HBO Max catalogue.
