Alfonso Cuarón Sneaked a Clever Easter Egg into Prisoner of Azkaban
Easter eggs and references are a staple of modern-age on-screen storytelling: you'll hardly find a TV series, a movie, or even a video game that doesn't include either blunt or hidden tributes to other fictional pieces.
Because of how common they are and how smartly hidden they can be, Easter egg hunting became a favorite pastime for many people around the world.
Fans of fictional universes feel ecstatic after finding some witty reference to their favorite piece in a different piece, and creators also have fun placing or hiding them.
Sometimes, though, Easter eggs don't reference other fictional worlds: instead, they pay tribute to something — or someone in the real world.
Uncovering these Easter eggs can be even harder: it's fairly easy to watch out for a Star Wars reference, but much harder to search for a real-life one since it can be literally anything.
When fans have been failing to discover some Easter eggs for a long time, creators typically reveal them themselves; but some of them don't even wait for that.
The director of Harry Potter and The Prisoner of Azkaban, Alfonso Cuarón, revealed some of his Easter eggs in his interview for SFGate right after the movie's release!
Cuarón's Easter eggs belonged to the real-life type and were very important to him. However, the director used them to pay tribute to his culture as a whole: he said, they were his indulgence. For those of you who don't know, Alfonso is Mexican.
He revealed that many Mexican touches can be found here and there throughout the entire duration of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.
In the background of many shots, you can notice various skulls and skeletons. Combined all together, they are one big reference to the Mexican Day of the Dead, a great feast in honor of Santa Muerte.
In this shot, for example, you can see sugar skulls — a popular Day of the Dead treat in Mexico.
The fountain in the courtyard of Hogwarts in Cuarón's movie also features eagles with snakes in their beaks — this is an homage to the Mexican flag that has this scene as its centerpiece.
There are more Mexico-related details dotted around here and there throughout the film, but, according to Alfonso Cuarón, it doesn't matter how many of them you can find.
The director claims that it's more about the spirit of Mexico he brought into the movie, an inseparable part of him that he values so much.
"It's about a Mexican sensibility. It's who I am, and I'm tinted by that," says Alfonso.