It's been 20 years and the lambs are still screaming

I was channel surfing on the weekend trying to find something entertaining to watch and there on TV on a Saturday afternoon was The Silence of the Lambs. Released in 1991, the film stars Jodie Foster and Anthony Hopkins. The film is a thriller that combines elements of the classic horror genre with elements of a psychological mystery.

When I first saw The Silence of the Lambs I remember being struck by how utterly chilling and truly terrifying it was. The dark, intimate and sobering way the film portrayed the mutilation of victims murdered by a sadistic killer was disturbing to behold, yet remarkably engrossing at the same time. Twenty years later, it still holds up.

It is the characterizations of the killers that make the film so frightening. Buffalo Bill, a serial killer who hunts women, abducts them, starves them and then skins them is on one side being hunted by the FBI while Dr. Hannibal Lecter, a brilliant psychiatrist and psychopathic killer enlisted by the FBI to help profile Bill is on the other side.

Both killers are evil figures driven by vastly different compulsions and desires. Buffalo Bill is a disturbed man with gender identity issues who is fashioning a “woman suit” out of the skin of his victims. Bill is demented and his crimes are grotesque, but he is a less imposing, less complex villain next to the exceptionally insane Dr. Hannibal Lecter.

Anthony Hopkins’ portrayal of Lecter is a brilliant dichotomy. Lecter is suave, intelligent and charismatic as well as evil, cruel and insane. When Foster’s FBI agent character, Clarice Starling, visits Lecter in a maximum security psychiatric hospital to obtain information about Buffalo Bill, Lecter turns the interrogation on her in what becomes a cold and cruel dissection of her life. The way in which he shares information about Buffalo Bill in exchange for Starling’s personal revelations is both sinister and ingenious. Lecter is the essence of pure evil and monstrosity and Hopkins makes the role his own in what is inarguably his best work.

Buffalo Bill almost appears like a caricature of villainy next to Lecter; a lesser foe whose pathology can be understood by the kind of childhood he suffered (he was born to an alcoholic prostitute then raised in foster care and abused by his foster parents), and by the crimes he commits. He is a man so fascinated by women that he wants to become one by sewing together a gender-altering outfit made of skin.

In contrast, Lector is cold, calculating and cannibalistic, yet he respects Starling’s intelligence, expresses genuine sympathy for the sad memories she shares from her past and develops a bond with her that arises from mutual give and take. The way he is able to manipulate and psychoanalyze Starling, understand Bill’s motivations, and then blithely reminisce about eating the liver of one of his victim’s conveys his incredible complexity as a character.

The Silence of the Lambs is a superb and smart psychological thriller that does not rely on the usual scare tactics like fake scares or gore for the sake of gore. Rather, it relies solely on creating tension by employing great cinematic techniques like point-of-view shooting (during Starling’s slow dissent to Lecter’s cell), extreme close-ups (the devilish expression on Lecter’s face when he utters the infamous and chilling line “I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice chianti”), and dramatic cinematography (when Starling is in Buffalo’s Bill’s house fumbling around in the dark surrounded by mannequins and flying moths while Bill stands behind her with his arm reached out about to touch her.)

One sign of a good film is when it evokes the same feelings it did after the third, fifth, or tenth viewing as it did after the first one. I felt utter fear the first time I saw the movie and I felt utter fear this last time I watched it, and that is a sign that The Silence of the Lambs is one heck of a film.

Sucker Punch Causes Confusion but Not A Knockout

Sucker Punch

I recently read an article that mentioned that action films with female driven protagonist do not do well at the box-office. According to the article, unless the film stars Angelina Jolie, interest from both men and women is low. The piece seems to allude that, in general, audiences to not care to see women kicking butt so to speak. I think the problem has more to do with the poor scripts and the blatant sexualization of the leads than it does with the public’s lack of interest. Zack Snyder’s latest film Sucker Punch is a perfect example of this.

Sucker Punch revolves around Baby Doll (Emily Browning), who after the death of her mother and sister, is unjustly sent to the Lennox House mental institution for women by her lecherous stepfather. Striking a deal with a crooked worker, Blue Jones (Oscar Isaac), at the institution, Baby Doll’s father arranges for his stepdaughter to be lobotomized in five days. This will ensure that Baby Doll cannot tell of his misdoings to the police or anyone else. To cope with the horror of being locked away at Lennox House, Baby Doll learns from therapist Dr. Vera Gorski (Carla Gugino) to channel her fears into creating an imaginary world where she is a fierce warrior. Drifting between the real world and the imaginary world, and with the clock ticking, Baby Doll designs a plan to escape the institution. In order for the plan to work she must enlist the help of Rocket (Jena Malone), Rocket’s sister Sweet Pea (Abbie Cornish), Amber (Jamie Chung), and Blondie (Vanessa Hudgens). Guided by the instructions of a mysterious Wise Man (Scott Glenn), the women embark on an adventure that will be far more challenging than they ever imagined.

To say Sucker Punch does not make a lick of sense is a major understatement. The audience spends the majority of the film trying to decipher what is going on and how is everything is connected? Part of the problem is that the audience is shown very little of “real life” is like in the institution. Everything they are shown is from Baby Doll’s imaginative view. Which brings up one of the questionable aspects to the film, why would Baby Doll’s envision the institution as a 1950’s style brothel? While there is one scene in the last fifteen minutes of the film where the guards allude to abusing the girls in some way, nothing else in the film offers any further explanation. Why is the “brothel world” even in the film at all? One would assume that Baby Doll should be able to go from the “real world” to the “warrior world” without even needing to go through the “brothel world” first.

On their own, each of the three worlds that inhabit Sucker Punch could have served as an interesting movie in its own right. The “real world” could have been a stylized female version of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. As a film onto itself, the “brothel world” could have been a decent tale with rich and fully realized characters. Lastly the centrepiece of the film, the “warrior world” could have been a fun, and over-the-top, fantasy film that really let the female heroes let loose and have fun. Honestly it is perplexing why Snyder did not set the film in this world entirely. Judging by the level of action in the film, not to mention the overall marketing and animated short films teasers, it is clear that Snyder wanted this section to be the focal point.

While the visuals in the “warrior world” are nice at times, for the most part they are just glossy and hollow. This is due to the fact that the audience does not have any connection to either the characters, or the world. Besides Baby Doll being abused, and Rocket and Sweet Pea running away from home, there is nothing really unique or interesting about the characters. So watching attractive women, who the audience cares nothing about, fighting hoards of nameless creatures who have no ties to the main plot does not generate the excitement Snyder is hoping for. It also does not help that there is rarely any level of consequence in this world. The women can get punched through walls and still comeback looking like they just stepped out of the salon. As a result, the ”warrior world” is nothing more than big screen Manga comic that features buxom women and is poorly written.

Sucker Punch wants to be an action film that wants to make a smart commentary on how women are sexualized in action films and in the world in general. Unfortunately, the message gets lost since Snyder’s film is designed to appeal to teenage boys. It is “girl power” as seen through a man’s eyes. For all its talk about females finding the strength within them, being the controllers of their own fate, men being evil, etc. this film still manages to cater to a male demographic instead of a female one. This is most evident when Sucker Punch makes a point early on to clearly state that Baby Doll is twenty years-old. Besides Sweet Pea, and possibly Rocket, all the other women in the film look like teenage girls in lingerie. The fact that Baby Doll can only get to the “warrior world” via a raw sexually-charged dance, which the audience never sees, is not something that would get most females running to the theatre on opening day.

Zach Snyder is a director who usually knows how to balance glossy visuals, interesting characters, and entertaining plots. Yet Sucker Punch is a major misstep in an otherwise strong body of work. It is a film that should have been both a thrilling tale and a major step forward for solidifying females as viable action leads. Unfortunately, the film fails on both parts, it ends up being a film that is both insulting to popcorn movie fans and women in general. Those hoping to find strong female characters on par with Ripley in Aliens or Sarah Connor in the Terminator series will be sadly disappointed. To put it bluntly, Sucker Punch is one of the worst movies to hit theatres in recent years.