HANNIBAL review

HANNIBAL is the best unrequited love story since THE BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN.

In all the ways that SILENCE OF THE LAMBS was a stunningly solid work of dark crime story filmmaking… Much like how FRANKENSTEIN was a perfect Gothic tale… HANNIBAL is the step forward in the series.

I am amazed at the anger and disappointment being voiced by critics all over… It is almost as if these reviewers wanted to see HANNIBAL be a basic retread of the first film, and have become more disappointed to see something that I feel is far more unique and inspired than SILENCE OF THE LAMBS.

I love Silence, I do… but at its heart that film is still basically just a crime thriller. A perfect crime thriller. HANNIBAL accomplishes something entirely different. It never concerns itself with being that same type of story. HANNIBAL is instead a satiric operatic black romance about the Devil picking a bride that would never have him.

Immediately after seeing the film I set out to read the negative reviews, to see their point. To understand them. It seems that this is the exact same case as when the Coen Brothers followed up FARGO with THE BIG LEBOWSKI… the critics revolted and screamed bloody murder about wasted chances and disappointed career turns, when they were ultimately killed by their own shallow sense of expectation. A desire to see the familiar instead of the truly different.

Do we need to see Lecter behind bars? Behind glass? Is he more menacing there? Should Clarice’s part have been the central character again? NO! NO NO NO NO NOOOO!

I have never read more misunderstood interpretations of a novel as I did when Thomas Harris’ HANNIBAL hit shelves… And again with this film I still see the same whining.

Evil in a bottle is nowhere near as compelling or entrancing as when it is beside you at an opera. In HANNIBAL, Ridley Scott and Anthony Hopkins have crafted a character filled with shocking and delightful humor, sizzling intelligence and arresting charisma.

Go back in time to the period when BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN was released. For years people have debated about whether or not it had intentional humor or if it was boggled thrills and suspense gone wrong. James Whale made BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN to laugh at all the conventions of the genre… The dead wanting to marry and love. It was wicked and delicious. Was it necrophilia if they were both dead?

In this film, Ridley Scott actually saw what Thomas Harris wrote… which was his delicious laughter at the success of his creation. A cannibal that everyone aspired to be. A serial killer that people flocked to watch. They watched how the audience always held their breath as Lecter’s hands grazed across Jodie Foster’s fingers in SILENCE and they took note. How silly is it that the audience finds that moment so delicious? So it is romance they want, let’s give it to them.

We watched in OUT OF SIGHT as Jennifer Lopez’s beyond sexy federal marshall got all hot and bothered for a professional thief and escape con in George Clooney… Well here… We can be more, twisted than that, more ironically romantic.

Let’s take all of the world’s favorite Nancy Drew and fix her up for a date with the world’s best cannibal chef!

As different as ALIENS was to ALIEN, so is the case here. As different as THE BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN was to FRANKENSTEIN… this is the case here.

Hannibal is a wicked gothic Grand Guignol Italian opera about unrequited love. It is not lost on me that we bring Italy into this mix… Italy with its fine history of Giallo Cinema and Fulci Reds. Watching the film all I could think afterwards while talking to Father Geek was how wonderful it would have been to see Vincent Price in his prime play this same character. Hopkins IS Lecter, but oh what a delicious play Dr Phibes would have made of this. It feels very Dr Phibes to me. And Julianne Moore is most definitely Lecter’s Vulnavia.

Phibes was also a fan of all things of taste… music, art, food, atmosphere and décor. Lecter’s Hopkins has the menace of Price’s Dr Cross from the little seen SHOCK, the beguiling charm of Price’s Cardinal Richelieu. However for the first time I saw in Hopkins’ face a bit of longing and a tragic sense of rejection.

The kitchen scene… Reminiscent of Elsa Lancaster’s rejection… the clinging of Fay Wray to Bruce Cabot… all the moments where love failed the tragic central character. I saw the film with one of my long time friends Dorothy Parker and her immediate response was… "What a beautiful love story!"

ABSOLUTELY. Think about the love involved in Hannibal’s letters… sure there is the chiding and poking at her past and familial background, but those are the frustrated tugging upon pigtails in the schoolbus of life. Lecter was giving her hints and ways to trace him, to help her… to bring her closer. He had a special hand lotion made just to let her find him. He travels to the United States with the express purpose of getting her out of trouble. THINK ABOUT THAT FOR A SECOND. Hannibal Lecter risks everything to re-enter the United States on the sole purpose of saving her reputation, knowing that the entire country would be after him. Facing every possible obstacle. Willing to incur personal agony merely to preserve the sanctity of her existence.

That’s love. And what does he get in return from her? No understanding, no longing, no love in her eyes. He does it all for her and all she wants to do is cage him, control him and take away the one thing above all he cherishes… his freedom.

HANNIBAL is an allegory for the very state of female-male relationships through the skewed world of Ridley Scott and Thomas Harris. The world where a gentleman is taken to task for his obscure old world tastes.

Ok, maybe my entire perspective is skewed because I was recently smitten and am in the act of being teased to death by the said vixen in question, but the fridge scene was closer to the mark than many could believe. I only wish that when I got the goodbye kiss she would have brought out the handcuffs.

Have a happy Valentine’s Day… see HANNIBAL with the one you love.

P.S. After reading some of the comments down below and some email let me address some of the specific negatives that some folks seem to be having with the film.

First the issue of the pacing in the film and what some folks are deeming to be a 'boring time'. Now I can't argue that you must have been bored at this time with the movie, but to me... at the exact moment you were bored I had an entirely different experience. In SILENCE OF THE LAMBS there is a sequence of simple beauty that illustrates briefly Hannibal Lecter's entire pace of life. This is of course the opera scored sequence in the cage as he kills those poor unsuspecting officers. The music... Remember how Lecter's pulse rate during an attack never raises above a normal heart beat level? This movie is based on Lecter's internal clock. The pacing of his own life... the ease and tranquility of his internal soundtrack... His appreciation for things that take time.... wines, art, literature, music... He is a refined gentleman of exquisite tastes. His life is not one of moment to moment thrills. He isn't a compulsive killer... he doesn't kill constantly. He kills when he needs to or feels it will better the world and provide an interesting meal. I've seen some folks refer to Lecter as a MASS MURDERER, no... he is a cannibal and a serial killer... A mass murderer is someone that kills large numbers of people all at the same time like Charles Whitman on the U.T. tower or George Hennard in Killeen. I found the pacing deliberate and compelling. Hanging on every moment like the tasting of the finest of wines.

Next there is the Gore issue. I found the film remarkably un-gory. With all the hoopla about the gore, I believed that this was going to make the HELLRAISER series look plain, but in reality... we had a couple of expanding pools of blood, a gushing (hidden in shadows) blood flow from a femoral artery wound, there was the spilling pile of intestines... but this was the briefest of shots, the dining of the swine sequence is actually more sound effects than visuals and then the infamous brain scene... this has even been done in film before and even more gory. As for the make-up for Mason Verger... quite simply it was brilliant. While not exactly as described in the book, this is very much realistic. I once knew a comic collector who's face was very much similar to Verger's... no eyelids and all. He had been caught in a very intense fire.... had no nose, lips or ears. He talked in a sloppy unpronounced manner (try speaking with no lips to enunciate with sometime).

As for the unrequited love story not fitting into the genre or into this type of film. SILENCE OF THE LAMBS has often been claimed by aficionados of the Horror genre.... well this is the home of the unrequited love. Frankenstein, Dracula, King Kong, Phantom of the Opera, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, The Creature From The Black Lagoon and even The Mummy all poor victims of misplaced affections and love gone wrong. At least here our lovable monster does not have to die, but like the Creature he escapes to love another day.