Hannibal Rising

Pray what was the need to solve the Hannibal puzzle? What was the need to justify his warped soul?

Hannibal Rising
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Hannibal Rising takes the sting out of the demonic Hannibal Lecter. And that has nothing to do with the fact that a callow Gaspard Ulliel can definitely not send a chill down our spine the way a fiendish Anthony Hopkins so easily could. The real problem is that the prequel to The Silence of the Lambs shows us graphically how and why he became the hideous cannibal. In the process, the entire Hannibal myth comes undone. The enigma, the horror, the disgust, the revulsion and the terror one has always associated with the infamous psychopath vanishes and get replaced by a little sympathy and empathy. Now, that’s bad news for any grisly bad boy.

Hannibal Rising takes us back to a young Lecter, sporting dirty nails and suffering from ghastly nightmares. He loses his parents in World War II and goes over to Paris to live with a sexy Japanese aunt (the ever mysterious and intensely sexy Gong Li). She herself has faced the trauma of war and is quick to form a deep bond with the nephew. She trains him in martial arts; he even gets a visor for himself from her treasure of knick-knacks. Soon enough, things start tingling between the two. In one of the scenes where she stitches his wounds, the frisson and sparks are all too tangible. And he cares deep enough to readily slay a fisherman who has acted funny with her. Unfortunately, the filmmaker doesn’t dwell very long on the relationship and its many possibilities. We are taken deep into Lecter’s troubled soul. As a 10-year-old, he had been witness to a horrid end of his kid sister at the hands of five flesh-eating Nazis and he will now do the same unto them. A degree in medicine and the study of the human anatomy come in handy in this mission. Soon enough, a promising psycho-thriller turns into a bad revenge drama in which the cop is always two steps behind the criminal. In a nutshell, it’s all about the hideous ways of killing, flesh-pounding images, slain heads, blood and gore.

Towards the end when Lecter confesses his love to the distraught aunt, she says: "What is left in you to love?" "What is left in him to be scared of," is what viewers are left asking. Pray what was the need to solve the Hannibal puzzle? What was the need to justify his warped soul?

High Fives

Bollywood

1. Bhool Bhulaiyaa
2. Laaga Chunari Mein Daag
3. Speed
4. Dhamaal
5. Dhol

Hollywood

1. 30 Days of Night
2. Why Did I Get Married?
3. The Game Plan
4. Michael Clayton
5. The Comebacks

Ringtones

1. Halloween (John Carpenter)
2. Pink Panther (Henry Mancini)
3. Adios Amor Te Vas (Grupo Montez)
4. Rockstar (Nickelback)
5. Super Mario Brothers Theme (Kondo)

Courtesy: Film Information

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