Movie Rec & Thoughts: The Hunger Games

[retsuko]

A roundabout lead-in to my thoughts on this movie: when I lived in Japan, I went to see "Boys Don't Cry" as part of the Kochi City Modern Art Museum's series that I mentally translated as "films that some people here might want to see but won't get a wide release because the material is too challenging to translate." Going in, I really didn't know what BDC was going to entail. I went with my foreign friends Scott and Maggie, and the three of us were the only foreigners in the theater. Well. That rape scene is one of the most uncomfortable experiences I've ever had at the movies. I wanted to crawl out of my skin, or turn off my ears during it--it was that awful. But the strangest thing was that no one else in that theater made a sound during that scene. I wanted someone else to cough, or fidget, or do something that would let me know that I wasn't alone in my discomfort, that another human being in the audience found the material on screen as morally repugnant and unsettling as I did. It was all I could do not to cry loudly--I think I may have sprained something internally from holding my emotions in.

Then the movie was over, and the staff played the trailer for next week's film: "South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut." (That trailer wasn't a palate cleanser, per se, but it did break up the tension in my soul a bit.)

Anyway, this leads me to my thoughts on "The Hunger Games": I channeled about 10% of that uncomfortable from BDC, which I hadn't done in a movie theater in a long time. And, annoyingly enough, the audience here did almost the same damn thing. When Rue died... I wanted someone else in the theater to react as appalled as I was. And there were a few gasps around me, but overall, it was that awful, creeping silence again. Fortunately, this time yebisu9 was with me, and I cut off his circulation instead of spraining my lungs. The whole sequence reminded me of a gorgeous production of "Madame Butterfly" I saw a few years ago at the San Diego Opera. I went in knowing the ending, yet when Cho-cho-san picked up that knife, I thought to myself, "But the music is so beautiful, and you are so young and beautiful, and maybe, just maybe, you won't make this decision?" And... then she did, and she died, and I shed a few tears for her. It's a disquieting sensation when a narrative goes the direction you expected it to, but hoped against hope wouldn't. Poor Rue has an expiration date on her forehead from the moment she first appears, but I almost hoped that.... I don't know. The spear would miss. Katniss would push her aside just in time. The audience would stand up and refuse to take this kind of bullshit. Instead, people around me whispered sadly, and reserved their gasps for the moment when Cato snaps the neck of the tribute who fails to stop Katniss from blowing up the food. The loudest reactions came, though, when we saw Gale's reaction to Katniss' blossoming relationship with Peeta. I suppose this is due to the fact that there were a lot of teenagers in the audience, but I wanted to yell, "C'mon, people, this is the least important part of the whole thing!"

Anyway. I liked this movie, but watching it was not easy, and the two laughs that I had were well-needed. It's a slog of despair in many places. District 12 looks like a Dust Bowl era photograph, the Capitol looks like Leni Riefenstahl was put in charge of a sci-fi film, and because I've read the books, I know the fate of every character before they even open their mouths. This isn't to say it was a huge downer. There is some amazing set dressing and make-up work, and dynamite acting jobs. I think Lenny Kravitz was amazing, and I really, really needed someone like Cinna at all the points he appeared. Sure, he was a bit more low-key than I expected, but he was so genuinely kind to Katniss, which the story really needed, lest it turn into "I need therapy after this, please." And I really loved Jennifer Lawrence. She may not have been how I envisioned Katniss, but her face and gestures... I got the distinct feeling she really wanted to do right with this role, and I liked her Katniss very much.

The camera work was a bit unsettling at first, but once I got used to the Steadicam shots, they started to make sense--Katniss' point of view before and during the games is always moving, never staying in one place. There are too many perils to watch out for, and the camera mimics that to exceedingly good effect. The hallucination shots were well-done, too, mixed with Katniss' memories of her father's death and her mother's subsequent catatonia. All in all, I felt like this whole film was shot with the idea that the Games would not be glamorized in any way, that the audience would be forced to experience what Katniss does, and this was a good idea that was well executed.

Side notes:

* The archery nerd in me really wants to try shooting some of those beautiful arrows Katniss had.

* Katniss' fire dresses were beautiful, especially the second one. I have to admit that if I could buy clothes that did something amazing like that, I probably would.

* The food in the Capitol did not look very appetizing. I kept expecting someone to say "Here, try these larks' tongues!" Although that would have been on the "very obvious" side of the equation.

* MAC cosmetics gets a special thank-you in the credits, and holy crap, do they ever deserve it! It was like their whole color palette was on display in the Capitol. I did love Cinna's gold eye liner, very striking and beautiful.

* Trailer Park: We saw the "Breaking Dawn, Part 2" trailer, and Jacob was loudly booed by someone down in the first row (ha ha); "The Avengers" is interesting me less and less with each passing promo (not enough ladies, too many mans); and "Titanic" in 3D will not be something I spend my money on.

Comments

[digitalemur.livejournal.com]

I don't know what the rest of the audience in my theater sounded like when Rue died and the riot happened and Katniss was freaking out after it, because I was in my seat with my hands alternately over my mouth and hugging myself, trying to make sure that my sobs were too quiet to disturb other people. The music covered me pretty well, I _think_.

I also lost it during Prim's reaction to her nightmare and her reaction to Katniss volunteering, because a) I've read all three books, and b) nothing makes me lose my crap like a small child wailing in fear and misery, and c) Prim hit every "but she's just a baaaaaby!" button I had.

I saw BDC on video, two years after it came out, and after someone, somewhere, told me that there was not a rape onscreen in that movie. I even know who told me this. I... don't know how this happened. I watched it with my boyfriend and his housemates, and I don't think any of us moved a muscle from the rape scene on, and we were silent through the credits and for at least 10 minutes afterwards.

To go back to Hunger Games: our audience laughed at Gale's discomfort at Katniss and Peeta's relationship, and at a bunch of other minorly darkly funny moments that I can't remember now-- I laughed too because the laughter was all around me. I'm not sure if it was nervous laughter or what. And when Cato unexpectedly snapped that kid's neck we gasped, from surprise I guess, but they didn't give it enough time for us to process it, really. I... sort of wanted a commercial break to process it, like in that episode of Buffy Season 2, but we didn't get that, and I think that's the point, that nobody was being given the time to process it.

[retsuko.livejournal.com]

Who the hell would think that BDC doesn't... oh, yikes. I'd better not get worked up over it. That was awful. I do think it's a movie that a lot of people should see once (especially those who are transphobic or think that trans issues don't matter to them), but I never, ever want to see it again. There was so much raw hatred in that scene. I've always wondered what it was like to film, and what sort of relationship you'd have to have with another actor to do that.

I've heard that some theaters were showing it with an intermission... I wonder if that might have made it easier to take. But I agree with you on the no-time-to-process thing, and that's probably for the best. I did appreciate that there were "quiet" moments, like Katniss and Peeta's conversation the night before the Games, or Cinna's farewell.

I've found that since giving birth, my buttons have been completely scrambled--"kids in peril" as a plot really, really bothers me, where before it only sort of bothered me. I think the me of college would have reacted a lot differently to this film, which is an odd idea.

[digitalemur.livejournal.com]

Yeah I have no idea. I have trouble watching Peter Sarsgaard in anything _else_ because of that film. I pretty much dissociated during the rape scene. It was watching Brandon trying to tell the police what had happened, later, that made me start to hurt.

Buttons change over time. I could watch violence in college that I absolutely cannot watch now, and kids in peril bother me more now than they used to, and I don't even have any kids. Humans just aren't static.

[cerusee.livejournal.com]

My audience was very similar, but the silence, to my mind, was not the silence of disinterest, but the silence of an audience that recognized this was the most emotionally significant and moving moment of the entire film, and was hyper-engaged with the film and showing respect for the moment and for other patrons by not making disruptive, distracting noises. Normal theater silence isn't really silent, but a quiet sound palette of people coughing, sneezing, shifting in their seats, whispering to friends, shuffling their hands around in their bags, checking their cell phones, and chewing on popcorn. This wasn't that kind of silence--it was the kind of complete and utter lack of sound that only happens when people consciously refrain from making any noise at all--a silence of action. Moment-of-silence silence. I found it moving.

(There was some very quiet sighing and sniffling afterwards, some of it from myself.)

My theater also snickered at Gale's angsty face of jealousy; either we were all Team Peeta, or the editing of those shots was naturally funny regardless of your feelings about Katniss's romantic life. (I really like Peeta and I retroactively came to hate Gale for the big spoilery thing he did in the third book, so it's hard for me to judge.)

[retsuko.livejournal.com]

I agree with you re: Gale's 3rd book spoilery character development. :p

Maybe I misinterpreted the reactions around me. I was very disturbed by the fact that there was a 7- or 8-year-old boy sitting down the row from me, and I thought it was completely inappropriate for him to be there. This story gets my Inner Judge really going, so perhaps that seeped into my movie-going experience.

ETA: Hey! How have you been? :)

[digitalemur.livejournal.com]

We got a distinct impression that most of the audience around us had already read all three books. Our audience was definitely very Team Peeta, but honestly, there isn't as much Gale to root for in that first movie as there is in the book.

But maybe that's my perception being poisoned by having read them all-- it's weird, I don't hate Gale so much as have this weird dissociative thing about the end of the series. I read the third book in a tent somewhere in Canada. I remember sitting upright in disbelief, and spending a whole chapter or more thinking _I don't believe it, I don't believe it, I don't believe it_ after a certain point. I have never done that with a book before-- it was like I just didn't believe the author, that's not what happened, SHE'S TELLING IT WRONG, and that never happens to me.

[orichalcum.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I think I choose to disregard the third book as canon. No idea what they'll do with it as a film (which seems likely given the success of this one) - I mean, can you really do that onscreen?

I've always been Team Peeta, and did think that Peeta didn't come across quite as cool in the movie as in the book; in particular, in the book you get more of a sense of Peeta Master Manipulator and Charmmeister, always thinking about The Show, whereas here he came across more as just Earnest Nice Guy.