There. I've exhausted Apple Trailers for a while, and myself, and I'm off to watch a real movie or two and I'll see you all in the real near future.
Boo!
Did I get ya?
Perhaps I can learn a little patience and planning from our young protégé, Hannibal and plot out my revenge with the precision of a well-executed operatic theme.
Okay - One thing you must learn about me up front – I don’t listen to movie reviews. Which is kind of funny because that’s what I am doing. But I really don’t. Lot’s of time people have passed on something that they thought was a waste of cinematic time and space and I thought it was a masterpiece.
Point in case – “Ghost Rider” by that ubiquitous Bruckheimer/Cage team. Loved it, minor couch bouncing, but it could’ve been the cold medicine too. But come ON- how can you not LOVE Sam Elliot as one of the Last Riders out to settle his ultimate debt against the devil he tricked years ago? Hell yeah, bring on the Diet Coke, ‘cause I’m tuned in to the end.
Although the chick bothered me. Curves. No nerves. Completely tossable. Although…she did drink a bottle of wine and you gotta love a chick that can pound it down. Okay, she gets a pass, but really – too sappy. I was DONE with her about ten minutes into the movie. And I LOVE Eva. She’s smart, sassy, sexy and CURVACIOUS in ALL the right places. Now someone give her something where she can prove she’s got the chops. There will be mouths hanging down in surprise, I guarantee.
The reason I got off on this tangent – oh, and get used to the tangents – they can sometimes be useful - is because there was a book that came out called “Hannibal Rising” by Thomas Harris.
“Manhunter” – showstopper. Peterson in that role was unstoppable, a force of nature. (The original of course, sorry Ed.) “Silence of the Lambs” created such a buzz because it was the most frightening psychological thriller out there in years. Can anyone remember the scene of Jodie Foster, blind as a bat in the darkness, gun shaking from fear in her hand and Gumb reaching out to just barely touch her with Foster completely unaware of how close the real nightmare truly is?
National nightmares for weeks. It disturbed our national psyche and reminded us there are really folks of that ilk out there. And is quite likely responsible for stating all those CSI and SVU and other type shows out there and catapulting them to the stardom that they currently enjoy. If I may just say one word here – overkill….
I was disappointed by Harris’ next book; it seemed written specifically to be transferred to the screen instead of toward the character development that was so vital in the other episodes. I bought the book, of course. Hoping to glean some kind of character development, some insight into the Lecter mind, into the strange odd relationship he had seemed to have forged with Clarice. But – PIGS??? You gotta be joking me. Someone wants revenge on Lecter by feeding him slowly to death to pigs trained to crave the flesh of humans? Ooookay. Suspension of disbelief s starting to wobble a little bit here. Has someone been watching a little too much Guy Ritchie Movies? Where was Bricktop and we were ready to go…And Clarice saves him so she can turn him over to the police. Except she doesn’t. Yeah. But I let it go.
Until this next feast for the psychological thriller under the ominous name of “Hannibal Rising.” Had I been any kind of logical person, I would’ve read the book first, but I’ve been behind on my reading so I wanted to see what they’d do with the character development. How does Hannibal become the monster we’re forced to confront to viscerally – literally – later on in life?
The tale begins on the Eastern Front in WWII. Hannibal, his little sister Mischa, and his parents run from their castle fro the approaching Soviets and Germans and decide to hide out in the woods in an old hunting lodge. There isn’t much there – food is scarce – it has been a hard time for all concerned, not just the humans. While they are there, a Soviet tank enters the clearing offering assurances that they will take nothing except water for the tank. Suddenly, German bombers are in the air and a battle ensues. The children’s’ father tries to run back to protect them but is shot down before their eyes, traumatic enough in itself. When the battle is over, the two small kids (they can’t be more than 3 and 5) find their mother and try to give her medical attention, but she dies from shrapnel wounds. Yet another trauma to add to little impressionable minds. The Soviets leave and leave the children there, alone.
Soon, the children are found by a band of roving bandits and looters who fancied themselves at one time good enough for the S.S. They are filth, commoners, and would have never have made the upper echelon ranches of the Reich. The bandits tie the children up with a chain around their neck and progress to ransack the house, finding it as lacking as the legitimate previous owners. But now, the atmosphere turns sinister. The leader eyeballs the children and says “We must eat.” Without really showing anything, you get the impression something horrible has happened, and every night for the rest of his life, Hannibal is woken by the screams of Mischa crying his name as she is dragged out into the snow.
Mute by choice until about age 16, he is put into an orphanage work-camp by the Soviets, The work camp is – most conveniently, located in the former castle of the Lecters. It’s even commented upon when he’s called to the headmaster’s office, as the headmaster tries to elicit some kind of sympathy by saying “I know this must be hard for you, this having been your mother’s room and all…” Duh. This is NOT a comfort, you Crazpakistan moron. And they’re all fat and sweaty – it’s got to be all the grease in their food coming to the surface –they’re just an unattractive people. You almost cheer when Lecter instinctively stabs a hall monitor in the hand to defend himself. First step on a dangerous slope…
From there, Lecter uses his secret knowledge of the house, he finally escapes, still never uttering a word, but first entering his tormentor’s bedroom and liberating a packet of private letters his mother had stashed there years ago. (Why they survived is unknown, but we go with it.) He has to cross the Soviet Border, having been annexed after the war. It should be mentioned that he was rescued by some Soviet Soldiers who found him wandering in the wood with a chain around his neck, severe malnourishment, and significant mental trauma.
Lecter begins to show his canny caginess for diverting attention from where it is concentrated to where he can pass through undetected, and he slips though the Soviet border, not completely unnoticed but certainly unstopped. He boards a train and starts heading West, where in reading his letters from and to his mother, he finds he has an Uncle in France, and believing this is his only remaining relative, he sets his mind on finding that last face that will carry the familiar characteristics of a home he thought he had lost a long time ago.
Unfortunately for Lecter and disappointment really does seem to follow him like a lone cloud, he is introduced to the Japanese wife of his Uncle, Lady Murasaki. She is heartbroken to tell him the news that his Uncle died a year ago. She has kindness in her face and can see that he has had a hard time of it in the war and she invites him to stay with her, for the sake of his Uncle’s family. Hannibal is grateful, and still mute, he cuts himself one day trying to please her by attempting flower arranging. His Aunt tries to break the barrier of silence between them and begs “please talk to me!” He replies, but simply: “Thank you.” The silence is broken. That isn’t necessarily a good thing.
Soon, he discovers her shrine to her Japanese ancestors and her prayer rituals to them and it fascinated him. The drawings of how they displayed the heads of their defeated warriors become an almost erotic moment for him. It comes into play much later though. Later in the week, the family of Hannibal, Lady Murasaki and a servant head to the local market to get provisions. A brutish, drunken man goes way past the bounds of good taste and insults Hannibal’s Aunt. As a lady, she chooses to ignore him and leave, but Hannibal is furious. Perhaps it is because he feels so incensed over the lack of being able to do anything to save his sister when he was smaller that he feels so strongly that he must avenge this insult.
This culminates in Hannibal’s first death. He meets the fat slovenly butcher in the woods and he causes him pain before he gives him release to death. He seems to want to cause pain before he will give the final release of death. The suffering of the victim seems to be part of the developing modus operandi. When we learn later what drives him, this makes some kind of perverse sense, but in this scene we are almost astounded by the - not clumsiness but not careful calculated moves that are so indicative of Hannibal’s later conquests. It’s his first death we forget; after all, this IS Hannibal Lecter, but we forget that he had to begin his journey somewhere. And the refinements would come as time went on.
Even with this early death Hannibal makes a deliberate slits to the cheeks of the victim and cook them with mushrooms –a brioche? And the victim is decapitated. Cleanly, by a sharpened piece of metal that no one can seem to think would be sharp enough to cause such damage in one blow instead of hacking away at the body. French War Crimes Inspector Inspector Popil, played with understated magnificence by Dominick West in one of his few not-over-the-top performances, is convinced it is our young Hannibal, and even offers to help track down these criminals and bring them to justice, or if Hannibal will just share what he knows, Popeil can perhaps help him. (Sorry but the innumerable Popeil pocket fisherman jokes begin here.)
He suspects Hannibal, not because Hannibal can pass a lie detector test but because he can pass it with no emotion at all, hinting at a monster beneath. As Hannibal keeps being questioned, Lady Murasaki takes great risk to herself and pits the head on one of the pikes outside the police offices. Since Hannibal was inside at the time, he has to be let go. When he returns home to the apartment he hares with his Aunt, she is in tears. She asks him to stop. He wavers, deeply torn between his depth of caring for her and an age-old promise. “I promised Mishka first.” He says firmly but sorrowfully.
He sets out on a trip through Europe on a fact-finding mission to see what has become of the old troupe who ruined his and his sister’s lives. When le learns all he needs to know, he returns to Paris and resumes his studies as a medical student – the youngest ever accepted, he boasts in a “letter” to his dead sister. And the real plotting, planning, and conceiving of intricate plans far beyond most human comprehension begins. A brutal death in a lonely forest, other weird and wild deaths start passing through Europe like a plague. When Hannibal returns, Popeil warns Lady Murasaki that if Hannibal causes death on French soil, Popeil will have him under the Guillotine.
Hannibal is brought in for questioning again, and this time tells the story of the band of brigands who ate his sister. This is the nightmare that keeps him awake at night. She was only three and he could not protect her and the knowledge of it tears him to shreds every night in his dreams with her screams. The Inspector, looking quite ill, asks Lecter to pass along whatever information he knows so they can prosecute these war criminals. Hannibal agrees, but with the kind of smile he shares with Clarice later on where you know he just isn’t going to give her what she wants without a little work first.
That kind of acting subtlety is what sold this for me. Of course, Gaspard Ulliel who plays Lecter has studied Anthony Hopkins’ mannerisms and inflections, but instead of a straight mimicking or imitation, he has taken each gesture and added something uniquely Hannibal into it. Take the wave as the body is being drowned in an embalming tank in the school – too much for the older Lecter, but spot on for the younger man. A very careful study and performed with precision. I would not be surprised to see this man on American film screens again.
When we finally learn why Hannibal is as deranged as he is at the – ahem, shall we say – deathbed of one of the final victims, it is almost anticlimactic. You want they psychosis just for the sake of the serial killer mind and psychotic nature with no rhyme or reason involved. We enjoy our Hannibal unpredictable.
There is only one small moment of humanity you pity him for…after he has saved Lady Murasaki from a fate worse than death (and we are speaking literally), she kisses Hannibal and he kisses her back with a passion we did not know existed inside him. “I love you,” he says to her retreating form. “What is there left of you to love with?” she responds despondently. And yet, she covers his escape…and Lecter lives for another day…much like Clarice later on.
Coincidence?
I have it as a five – WOAH. I wanted back-story, but I feel I got a generalized serial killer with slight affectations of Hannibal later on more than a true Hannibal adventure. Still, worth the rent and a great addition to the Lecter collection.