Excellent film. The characters are authentic, and the themes timeless. I have not read the books, so my estimation is based solely on the film and might miss some of the books' nuances.
The film portrays an America of the future. If you see the film as metaphor or hyperbole, as I often do, it truly captures America of the present (just as Idiocracy did). A gleaming and "sophisticated" megalopolis holds deadly sway over various impoverished districts who, each year, are forced to render up a young man and woman as "tribute" for daring to rebel against the cosmopolitan philosopher kings roughly three generations prior. Before being dumped in the wilderness to fight each other to the death, the youngsters are paraded in front of mobs of city dwellers who yearn for their entertainment fix.
Several aspects of the film struck home for me, and in a powerful way.
Our protagonist is a young woman named Katniss Everdeen. She comes from a very poor, rural district that eerily resembles scenes from the Great Depression. Like all people hewn in such surroundings, she has a humility, sincerity, and quiet dignity of the sort men fall in love with. Truth be told, the actress playing Katniss looks similar to early photos of my grandmother, who comes from a similar background. Katniss is skilled with a bow out of sheer necessity, and that skill coupled with her character enable her to prevail.
A palpable theme is the contrast between rural and urban life. Compared to the dignified country bumpkins, the city dwellers are vapid, crass, and look as though they descended from another planet -- bizarre hairstyles, zombie-like face paints, loud clothing, garish piercings, and insect-like eyelashes. Worst of all, and quite accurately, the city dwellers are desensitized. Having bathed in ease for so long, they lack all sense of tragedy and feel no true empathy, motivating them to reach ever deeper into the perverse to achieve excitement. Thus they poke and prod the contestants like animals in a zoo. The scene where a perpetually-leering television hosts asks Katniss about visiting her sister for the last time -- stirring deep emotions within Katniss merely to gratify the ravenous audience -- made me sick, all the more so because this is exactly what happens on television. Pain, suffering, and tragedy are flashed across the screen every day to gratify empty-headed and heartless viewers who flip through the channels to find something titillating. A similar dynamic appears in Apocalypto, where the city dwellers haul in the rural folk for ritual sacrifice because the city dwellers long ago forgot what it means to be human.
Another aspect of city life that threatens Katniss is its insistence that she be "likeable," a trait her mentor explains as critical to garnering sponsors who will assist her during the game. Katniss has difficulty understanding what this entails because she is a person of character and substance. In modern city life, character counts for nothing because it is internal and unseen -- only "personality" counts because the modern person perceives only what is visible, and only that which flatters or entertains. Substance is downright threatening because most people do not have it. In her book Quiet: The Power Of Introverts In A World That Can't Stop Talking, author Susan Cain does an excellent job of exploring this shift in modern life away from internal qualities and toward the external personality. As an introvert I can attest to the hostility I've encountered from city dwellers, who are as capable of appreciating character or substance as a mollusk is capable of appreciating quantum physics or string theory -- it has always been easier for me to establish rapport with people who live real life rather than the towering construct of fantasy jutting up from the cities. Katniss's struggle to become a performing seal is my own, and surely it is for millions of others as well.
One more theme that hits the nail on the head is the fluid nature of the game's rules, which are constantly changing to satisfy the people in charge. As I have discussed on this blog once before, rules are liberating because they clearly demarcate how a person can stay out of trouble (or, in the movie, stay alive), which is precisely why tyrants hate rules. Juveniles who pride themselves as "rebels" for breaking all the rules are merely useful idiots who accomplish nothing more than the tyrants' dirty work. A signature aspect of tyranny is that it refuses to limit its authority in any objective way, insisting on a need to constantly change to deal with "crises" or other situations the tyrant wishes to turn to his own advantage. Like our own "living Constitution" -- the plaything of black-robed tyrants -- the rules of the hunger games are anything but fixed. It is when Katniss figures out how to make enforcing the rules advantageous to the rulers that she prevails, and the rulers hate her for it.
Good job, Hollywood. I'm glad you still have it in you to make a decent movie now and then.
The film portrays an America of the future. If you see the film as metaphor or hyperbole, as I often do, it truly captures America of the present (just as Idiocracy did). A gleaming and "sophisticated" megalopolis holds deadly sway over various impoverished districts who, each year, are forced to render up a young man and woman as "tribute" for daring to rebel against the cosmopolitan philosopher kings roughly three generations prior. Before being dumped in the wilderness to fight each other to the death, the youngsters are paraded in front of mobs of city dwellers who yearn for their entertainment fix.
Several aspects of the film struck home for me, and in a powerful way.
Our protagonist is a young woman named Katniss Everdeen. She comes from a very poor, rural district that eerily resembles scenes from the Great Depression. Like all people hewn in such surroundings, she has a humility, sincerity, and quiet dignity of the sort men fall in love with. Truth be told, the actress playing Katniss looks similar to early photos of my grandmother, who comes from a similar background. Katniss is skilled with a bow out of sheer necessity, and that skill coupled with her character enable her to prevail.
A palpable theme is the contrast between rural and urban life. Compared to the dignified country bumpkins, the city dwellers are vapid, crass, and look as though they descended from another planet -- bizarre hairstyles, zombie-like face paints, loud clothing, garish piercings, and insect-like eyelashes. Worst of all, and quite accurately, the city dwellers are desensitized. Having bathed in ease for so long, they lack all sense of tragedy and feel no true empathy, motivating them to reach ever deeper into the perverse to achieve excitement. Thus they poke and prod the contestants like animals in a zoo. The scene where a perpetually-leering television hosts asks Katniss about visiting her sister for the last time -- stirring deep emotions within Katniss merely to gratify the ravenous audience -- made me sick, all the more so because this is exactly what happens on television. Pain, suffering, and tragedy are flashed across the screen every day to gratify empty-headed and heartless viewers who flip through the channels to find something titillating. A similar dynamic appears in Apocalypto, where the city dwellers haul in the rural folk for ritual sacrifice because the city dwellers long ago forgot what it means to be human.
Another aspect of city life that threatens Katniss is its insistence that she be "likeable," a trait her mentor explains as critical to garnering sponsors who will assist her during the game. Katniss has difficulty understanding what this entails because she is a person of character and substance. In modern city life, character counts for nothing because it is internal and unseen -- only "personality" counts because the modern person perceives only what is visible, and only that which flatters or entertains. Substance is downright threatening because most people do not have it. In her book Quiet: The Power Of Introverts In A World That Can't Stop Talking, author Susan Cain does an excellent job of exploring this shift in modern life away from internal qualities and toward the external personality. As an introvert I can attest to the hostility I've encountered from city dwellers, who are as capable of appreciating character or substance as a mollusk is capable of appreciating quantum physics or string theory -- it has always been easier for me to establish rapport with people who live real life rather than the towering construct of fantasy jutting up from the cities. Katniss's struggle to become a performing seal is my own, and surely it is for millions of others as well.
One more theme that hits the nail on the head is the fluid nature of the game's rules, which are constantly changing to satisfy the people in charge. As I have discussed on this blog once before, rules are liberating because they clearly demarcate how a person can stay out of trouble (or, in the movie, stay alive), which is precisely why tyrants hate rules. Juveniles who pride themselves as "rebels" for breaking all the rules are merely useful idiots who accomplish nothing more than the tyrants' dirty work. A signature aspect of tyranny is that it refuses to limit its authority in any objective way, insisting on a need to constantly change to deal with "crises" or other situations the tyrant wishes to turn to his own advantage. Like our own "living Constitution" -- the plaything of black-robed tyrants -- the rules of the hunger games are anything but fixed. It is when Katniss figures out how to make enforcing the rules advantageous to the rulers that she prevails, and the rulers hate her for it.
Good job, Hollywood. I'm glad you still have it in you to make a decent movie now and then.
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