April 1 – The Silence of the Lambs (1991)

Since it is after Holy Week, I decided to give myself with a little scare and mindf***ery. After all the gooey romantic movies of the past week, I wanted to go with a movie that really scared people. For this reason, the movie I picked for today was the critically-acclaimed 1991 psychological thriller Silence of the Lambs. I say critically-acclaimed because this movie won 5 academy awards: Best Picture, Best Actress, Best Actor, Best Director and Best Writing (Adapted Screenplay). Considering this was a horror movie, this is a pretty big achievement.

The story follows FBI-agent Clarice Starling (Jodie Foster) as she helps catch the serial-killer named “Buffalo Bill”. His pattern involves abducting a fat woman, starving them, and later skinning them to complete a costume he is making. The agency decides to let her ask assistance from a former psychiatrist turned serial-killer they have in custody, Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins). Prior to their initial meet, Lecter’s character was already established to the audience. Proceed with caution. His background as a psychiatrist allows him to manipulate people. He eats people. Don’t touch the cell glass or else he’d jump at you. Never let him ramble or else he’d go to your head and turn you to stone. These information were all courtesy of Claire’s superior as he briefs her on Lecter’s history and the do’s and dont’s in dealing with him, before their encounter. A picture of sick and twisted man was painted as if to prepare the audience to the horrifying man they were about to meet.

When they met, it’ll send a shiver down your spine as you’re about to see a mad man. As they were conversing, you’d notice that something was off. He did not seem violent as previously described. He possessed great intellect. He was respectful and didn’t make disparaging moves on her. They engaged in small talk in exchange for the valuable information.  Hannibal gave off this disturbing innocence, like he was being fatherly with her. I don’t know if that was every psychopath’s M.O. (he didn’t really seem like a psychopath either), but he really seemed genuinely interested in Clarice’s life. It creates a dilemma whether you’d wanna keep hating the guy or not.

With every meet-up and exchange of information, the two begin to share a creepy connection. Every valuable information that Lecter shares leads to another breakthrough for Buffalo Bill’s case. As I said earlier, this comes with a price. With every personal story Clarice shares, she somehow becomes comfortable opening up to him. This further blurs the line between calling this man insane or not. If the lead character finds a spot to trust him, how can you not right? It’s important to note the excellent camera work during their conversations. Every time Hannibal talks, the camera is zoomed at his face as if forcing you to stare at his cold eyes when he talks. Ironically, the most disturbing scene happened during the last of their meet ups. It’s ironic because the movie was filled with disturbing scenes mainly from the skinned-victims’ images. The story was about the time when Clarice was orphaned in a farmland. She shared that she woke up one early morning and discovered a lamb slaughterhouse.  Turns out she got woken up by the cries of the tortured lambs. She escaped the same day and made a failed attempt to save one lamb out of the slaughterhouse. Then Hannibal Lecter goes: “…so this is what all of this about, you wanna catch Buffalo Bill to stop the screams of the lambs?” Imagination does create a more disturbing image than reality.

Clarice gets the final piece of the puzzle and Lecter gets all the information to fully understand her as well. Feeling like his purpose was over, he stages an elaborate and gory escape from his guards. He kills them both. He skins the face of one guard and wears it as a mask to divert their attention and escape. Clarice captures Buffalo Bill and finds his latest victim still alive in the basement. The final scene was a call made by Lecter checking up on Clarice. It takes a certain level of sick to be Hannibal Lecter. In the end, I was left wondering how a man like him is even capable of caring for another human being.

Silence of the Lambs disturbingly challenge my notion of good and bad. I know what he did as unacceptable, but it’s hard to hate the guy during his conversations with Claire. That’s where the success of the movie comes from. The most disturbing scenes of the movie lie not in the gore, but in the unpredictability of Hannibal Lecter. Anthony Hopkins portrayed him so well. You didn’t know whether this scene or the next is where he’ll go balls deep crazy. Long after watching the movie, I still felt disturbed. As I was eating meat for dinner, all I could hear were the lambs. Every bite I heard them screaming in my head. I wish I knew how to make em stop.

PS: As if I haven’t tortured myself enough, I’m watching the sequel Hannibal (2001) tomorrow! If I’m not too spooked yet by tomorrow, I might watch the 3rd movie Red Dragon (2002) too.