After Alfonso Cuarón gave the third ‘Harry Potter’ film a rather dark tone, director Mike Newell (‘Four Weddings and a Funeral’) brought more humor and light to Hogwarts in Part 4. Nevertheless, the film starts with an exciting sequence: when Harry, Hermione and the Weasleys visit the Quidditch World Cup, the guests of the magical tournament are attacked by the so-called Death Eaters, the henchmen of the evil wizard Voldemort.
In advance, we explore with the characters the terrain of the sporting event, where countless magicians and conjurers jump around, and also for a split second we can spot a juggler and a harlequin. But the makers of “Harry Potter and the goblet of fire“Really extremely well hidden – even though she can even be seen in the foreground of the photo!
To find out, press pause at exactly 6 minutes and 11 seconds. While we are fixated on Harry, Hermione, Ron & Co. we completely miss how several llamas pass in front of them, but they are only visible for a good second because they move to the right while the camera steers towards them.
But even if we notice the animals, in this short time it is barely possible to see who is on their backs: they are house elves – and one of them who also looks directly into the camera is none other than Dobbywho freed Harry from the clutches of the Malfoys at the end of “Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets”!
Here’s a photo of the house elf, which is right before our eyes and yet can easily be overlooked:
In this way, ‘Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire’ takes up in a casual and ironic way a storyline from the novel that the film dropped for dramaturgical reasons: in the book there is a subplot in which Hermione establishes a society to save those who have been enslaved are being held, to be freed. House elves have founded. Although this story element is not otherwise found in the film, the cheerful, free house elves attending a Quidditch tournament together can certainly be seen as a nod to the fence post.