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See Lecterland and die

A prequel to the Hannibal saga isn't very meaty
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By Steffen Silvis
Staff Writer, The Prague Post
February 28th, 2007 issue

COURTESY PHOTO
The mask of few men chewed. Gaspard Ulliel as that fine young cannibal Hannibal.
Reuters reports that a Lithuanian travel firm is now offering a Hannibal Lecter tour around Vilnius. The famed cannibal of Thomas Harris’ potboilers and their various cinematic adaptations began his life at the fag-end of the ancient Polish-Lithuanian aristocracy. Had the Nazis and Soviets not been so intrusive, the young Hannibal would’ve become a count — a fitting title for someone with such specialized dietary habits. The Lithuanian tour concludes with a “Hannibal feast” and a chance to meet “Lecter” (the order is not specified). All yours for 100 euros ($132/2,815 Kč).
How a fictional psychopath was transformed into a theme park is a topic best reserved for a grad thesis. Obviously, Lecter has become a brand, one that sells a lot of books and cinema tickets. Hannibal is the world’s favorite cannibal. He’s a thinking man’s Ed Gein, a heroic supervillain who, like X-Men’s Magneto, came into his “powers” after suffering horribly in World War II. Hannibal Rising is the story of this epic trauma.
The film opens on the banks of an idyllic pond near the regal pile that is the ancestral home of the Lecters. Young Hannibal and his sister, Misha, are at play when their parents call them in. The battle front between the Germans and Russians is moving closer to their castle, so the Lecters must flee to their cottage.
But the war finds them, and everyone around the two children is slaughtered. With famished wolves howling at the cottage door, the children are trapped — though not as much as they will be when six thieving German collaborationists break in on them. Everyone is hungry, and little Misha, the plumpest, happens to fit nicely into the stewpot.
Years later, an older Hannibal (Gaspard Ulliel) is on the road, jumping over the Iron Curtain and heading for France, where an uncle lives. He arrives to find that his uncle is dead, but that his Japanese wife, Lady Murasaki Shikibu (Gong Li), lives on in his chateau. Murasaki is drawn to Hannibal, seeing much of herself in him. As they both lost their entire families during the war (hers happened to be in Hiroshima), they settle into becoming a family of sorts.
Hannibal Rising

Directed by Peter Webber
With Gaspard Ulliel, Gong Li, Rhys Ifans and Dominic West

Hannibal’s one desire, his raison d’etre, is to seek revenge on the pack of men who made a dog’s tea out of his beloved sister. With the martial arts training he receives from Murasaki, our Gretel-less Hansel heads back into the grim Baltic forests.
What follows is perfect rubbish on many levels. The script, which Harris had his hand in, contains some of the most wooden dialogue since the bestselling blather of The Da Vinci Code — in other words a faultless mimicry of Harris’ own prose style. Director Peter Webber, best known for Girl with a Pearl Earring, films this cheap programmer with great style — if only his actors didn’t keep getting in the way.
Male-model-turned-actor Ulliel is quickly making a cottage industry out of being pretty and mad, though he was best served in A Very Long Engagement, where he entered a gentle madness after the trench horrors of World War I. But spare a thought for the excellent Gong Li, who, like her Spanish counterpart, Penélope Cruz, has been completely mishandled by Hollywood and should probably race back to Asia, where they are still making real films.
The purpose of Hannibal Rising, besides the imperative to make a buck, is mystifying for a number of reasons. The first is that it diminishes Harris’ original creation by making a fairly psychologically complex man into a desk reference case of childhood trauma.
Having not read the novel (life is too short), which was basically released in tandem as an instant tie-in with the film, it’s difficult to know whether the police procedurals (Harris’ strong point) are more sophisticated in print than they are in the film. On screen, police inspector Pascal Popil (who also lost his entire family in the war, but fails to join the Hannibal-Murasaki support group), almost instantly ties our brooding, chiseled Hannibal with two grisly crime scenes. In other words, it’s a suspense movie with little suspense.
Finally, what are we to make of a story that wants us to pity this fine young cannibal, while also demanding that we coldly cheer on his predations? Perhaps all will be explained on a future visit to Lecterland.

Steffen Silvis can be reached at ssilvis@praguepost.com


Other articles in Night & Day (28/02/2007):

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