Given the conversation I had at the National Film & Television School the other day, about the relationship between violence, image, and poetry (on and off the screen) I felt this revisited review (a current Thursday feature at Eyewear) would be timely.*
Hannibal (USA, 2001)
Horror
Directed by Ridley Scott
Starring Anthony Hopkins and Julianne Moore
Rating: 3 out of 5 specs
“The sacred and profane”
HANNIBAL is the sequel to Silence of the Lambs, which is widely regarded as the finest horror film ever made. In that movie’s profound study of an erotic stand-off between good and evil, hick and sophisticate, female and male, law and chaos, in the shape of Agent Starling and Dr. Lecter, an almost archetypal classicism was reached. Silence was also utterly terrifying. It gave the world the most loved, imitated and infamous monster since Dracula; who can think of a “nice Chianti” the same way since?
The baggage, then, was as heavy as if carrying bodies, for director Scott, who, in Alien, had discovered a hybrid of suspense and gore that improved on Hitchcock. He seemed an auspicious choice. As did Ms. Moore, who in fact has done a fine job of almost being Jody Foster; her sublimation of character may be the most frightening thing about this follow-up, ten years later.
Now for the bad news. HANNIBAL, friends, is boring. Or more to the point, it is not what any fan of the original would have wanted, but then we were all forewarned by author Thomas Harris’ mediocre novel (on which this film is squarely based); only his offensive ending has been surgically removed, but the rest of the ponderous Dantean framework (a Latinate study of betrayal and revenge) is in place.
Whereas Silence’s strength lay in the inescapable fact that Lecter was mostly confined, and hence barely approachable, here the demon with the oddly pale, masklike face is totally unleashed — free: but to do what? Look like any number of rich, retired American bachelors living abroad, as it turns out.
With his Armani suit, Capote fedora, designer shades and general fondness for perfumes, Lecter looks as gay as Christmas (which is alluded to in the film on several occasions); Hopkins has aged (naturally) by ten years, too, and his heavily-jowled face no longer tilts on the edge of taut vigor. Lecter is long in the tooth.
And Starling, the agent of goodness, is now a slight presence indeed. This time, the story belongs to the male lead, and evil is left untested by its needful opposite (only Pazzi, the flawed Florence-based detective, seems driven by an urge to really defeat the monster). Evil, when portrayed so graphically, as here, must either shock with new heresies, or appear dull-witted.
In an attempt to up the bloody stakes, Lecter is more cruel and unattractively sadistic than we remember him being. The penultimate scene of cannibalism and mutilation (which no one, however obnoxious, deserves) is at once just a sick joke and profoundly inhuman.
The opening credit sequence (the most disturbing part of the film) features Glenn Gould’s exquisite performance of Bach’s Goldberg Variations, purported to be Lecter’s favorite piece of music. That it may be. However, the Gould Estate has seemingly trespassed on grace by allowing Bach’s near-sacred work to appear in such a fallen, violent context. It leaves a bad taste in the mouth.
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