Hunger Games

[readerjane]

Hub and I went to see Hunger Games on Saturday. I've read the first book and a few chapters of the second; he had not read any of the series.

I was very satisfied with most of it. Parts were telescoped that I wish we had seen: the effect that hunger and dehydration had on the tributes; the loaf of bread that District 11 sent to Katniss in gratitude for her care for Rue.

Oh, lord, there is going to be a whole generation of baby girls named Katniss, isn't there?

But for the most part I think the filmmakers made good choices regarding what to keep and what to leave out. Loved Cinna's quiet conversations with Katniss. Gracious, Stanley Tucci was born to play Caesar Flickerman. He takes that role over-the-top in exactly the way it needs to be: without hesitation or any shame whatsoever.

I think Woody Harrelson was the wrong choice for Haymitch. Giving him a three-days' beard and some lanky hair wasn't enough to turn this strong, fit actor into the sot who drinks himself into oblivion every day to escape the memory of his own gladitorial victory.

A bigger problem was the extent to which the movie smooths over Katniss' defensive deception. This young woman makes the conscious choice to pretend to be falling in love with her teammate, in order to play to the crowd and get enough sympathy for wealthy sponsors to send her the food and medicine she needs to stay alive. It's a defensible choice, especially once Katniss knows that she and Peeta could win the game together. But it does damage to Peeta, to Gale, and to Katniss herself. It's also a choice she has to live with longer than she expects.

There's just a hint of that deception when, near the end of the movie, Peeta asks Katniss, "What now?" She replies, "We go home and try to forget, I guess." To which Peeta responds, "I don't want to forget." That's all we get in the movie to help us understand that Peeta was sincere about his affections and Katniss was not.

I'm hoping the second movie will delve into that more thoroughly. Going by the booming ticket sales, it seems likely the entire trilogy will be filmed.

There's also the issue of how you tell a tale that brings home our culture's increasing bent towards gladitorial entertainment, while showing that very entertainment on screen. That works in a textual story. It loses some of its moral authority on film.

Hub brought up an interesting point while we were eating dinner after the movie. Why do the parents meekly submit to having their children put through this lottery, then taken away to be slaughtered?

I admit that question hadn't even occurred to me. I'd been approaching the story from the perspective of a long-time YA-fiction reader, where children are the agents and parents are at best window dressing. YA heroes seldom think of looking to Mom or Dad for help. And this story does set the stage of a culture beaten down: the poor districts fenced in, living subsistence lives with little hope for escape or reform. We do get that one glimpse of the rioting in District 11 over Rue's death, but no such objections in District 12.

It's not surprising that Mama Everdeen, nearly paralyzed by depression, doesn't protest when first her baby is seized by the stormtroopers and then her elder daughter offers herself in substitutionary sacrifice. But I'm a bit ashamed that, as a mother, I wasn't asking myself why none of the other parents made a peep. Are Peeta's parents so beaten-down as well? Are there no Jochebeds in any of the poor districts to hide their children away when the Reapers come?
Surely no imperial retributions could be harsh enough that not one parent ever tries?

President Snow's conversation with Seneca Crane gives a clue, I think. Snow says that the best way to control the poor districts is to give them "a little hope". Not too much, because enough hope can lead to rebellion. But hope enough that the worst of the occupation will pass them by. Just enough hope to make them regard their neighbors as shields to hide behind, not comrades in arms.

It's a sobering thought.