Movie Review: Hannibal Rising
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What Parents Should Know
Parents need to know that this bloody
Silence of the Lambs prequel isn't for kids. Since it's
about the "birth" of famously evil character Hannibal the
Cannibal, it's no surprise that it's all about brutality
(usually involving swords and knives) and cannibalism. Other
violent scenes include wartime shootings and explosions,
stabbings, decapitations (heads are prominently displayed and
bloody), and a drowning (a man is locked in a hospital corpse
tank). Villains also drink, smoke cigarettes, and abuse women
(bruises on one victim). A few uses of "f--k," plus rude sexual
slang.
Families can discuss the effects of trauma on children. How is the monster that Hannibal becomes produced by seeing his sister eaten? How is Hannibal sympathetic as a child? Why can't he satiate his desire for bloody vengeance? How does this movie explain or otherwise reshape the Hannibal the Cannibal story as you know it so far? Is Hannibal as effective a character when he's not being played by Anthony Hopkins? Would you consider this a horror film or a thriller? Why?
Common Sense Media Review
So now we know: Hannibal the Cannibal was produced by
wartime trauma. That's the one decent idea in HANNIBAL RISING,
which traces the infamous serial killer's beginnings.
As child in 1944 Lithuania, Hannibal sees his parents die during a fight between Russian tanks and German planes. As little Hannibal (Aaron Thomas) and his younger sister Mischa (Helena Lia Tachovska) hide from snow and wolves in the family cottage, they're beset by starving German deserters -- who end up eating Mischa. The memory wreaks havoc with Hannibal's psyche and eventually leads him to seek vengeance against these men, who were deemed war criminals.
But first he has to grow up into a thin, brooding young man (played by Gaspard Ulliel). At the Soviet orphanage he winds up in, he stabs a bully with a fork; later, realizing that he doesn't fit in (the warden observes, "You do not honor the human pecking order"), he runs away to find his aunt by marriage, Japanese wartime survivor Lady Murasaki ( Gong Li).
Now living in France, Murasaki worships her samurai warrior ancestors and instructs Hannibal in martial arts, instilling in him a particular reverence for decapitation. When he defends her honor by killing a local butcher according to his understanding of samurai custom, Murasaki worries a little but helps him hide the crime from Inspector Popil ( Dominic West).
Still determined to avenge his sister's grisly end, Hannibal pursues the men who ate her. The most egregious is Grutas ( Rhys Ifans), whom Hannibal remembers repeatedly chomping on a bird, then checking little Mischa's arms to see whether she'd provide sustenance for his crew. ("We eat or die," says Grutas, a notion that Hannibal the boy absorbs ... and then some.)
Hannibal's dispatching of the cannibals fit the definition of a serial crime -- he leaves their heads in various locations, with their dog tags in their mouths. The token isn't exactly elegant or organic, but it is fitting -- these monsters were produced by military malfeasance, just as budding monster Hannibal is the product of the evils he's witnessed and perpetrated.
The deaths are grotesque and the blood splatty, but Hannibal the movie doesn't demonstrate the cultural sophistication that Hannibal the character will later develop (if Silence of the Lambs is any indication, that is). Here, he's a bitter, anxious boy-man, a medical student who prepares cadavers for other students' autopsies -- discovering as he does so not only his pleasure in such activities, but also his gift.
He is a grandly self-absorbed killer. When at last Murasaki begs him to stop, he cannot. His reason always: "They ate my sister." It's a terrible refrain and leads to a revolting psychosis. You can't help but miss Anthony Hopkins, whose sly wit alleviated at least some of Hannibal's thudding brutality.
Fans will have already seen Silence of the Lambs (the best of the bunch) and Hannibal ; you might also want to see more effective serial killer movies, like Seven , American Psycho, and Psycho .
Common Sense Media is a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing information to help parents make media and entertainment choices for their families.
