"People Will Say We're in Love"
by Sasha Stone

There is an exquisite moment in Jonathan Demme's The Silence of the Lambs where Hannibal (Anthony Hopkins), bathed in darkness, slips a rain-soaked Clarice (Jodie Foster) a towel through the slot. It tells us many things about the character: he knows about people in ways that seem almost supernatural. It also tells us that he is kind and cares about Clarice.

This relationship is apparently what so fascinated the world with The Silence of the Lambs, and has led to such a fascination with the sequel, that the film had the highest opening weekend of any non-summer film in history, and holds third place as the highest grossing opening weekend in history, right up there with Star Wars: The Phantom Menace and The Lost World: Jurassic Park II.

The story goes: Thomas Harris wrote the sequel in book form, which in itself was a scandal, so much so that Jodie Foster took a pass. Anthony Hopkins, however, was game, and with Ridley Scott as the director it was easy to draw the great Julianne Moore to play Clarice. Word got out quickly that Hannibal would contain some of the most disgusting images ever put to screen - a dubious distinction, but a distinction nonetheless. As it turns out, the gore is not just unnecessary; it is distracting to an otherwise elegant film whose only real problem would have been an unsatisfying ending.

Anthony Hopkins is electrifying in this role, even here. When we catch back up with Hannibal he is predictably living in Italy ("you know Florence?"), working under a pseudonym, teaching art, eating people, living like Gore Vidal. Hot on his trail is an aging cop (Giancarlo Giannini) with a beautiful wife who stumbles upon what seems like the jackpot of the century - $3 million to capture the infamous Hannibal Lecter. He apparently needs the money badly enough to risk his job (this would be illegal), and more importantly his life.

Meanwhile, the evil Dr. Verger (I don't think it's ruining the surprise to reveal that it's a barely credited Gary Oldman) is the one with the big bucks to pay off the cop. Verger is seeking revenge upon the good doctor for having had his face torn off and fed to dogs. What remains is a waxy, deformed creature in a wheelchair who looks like a cross between the Elephant Man and one of the Whos from The Grinch movie. Verger hopes to watch as Hannibal is eaten alive by wild boars. That, perhaps, would take away his pain.

The story sags somewhat when Clarice is brought into the story - this is for two reasons. The first being the most obvious - she's not Jodie Foster and we don't ache to keep her from harm the way we did with Foster. Moore's Clarice is empty-eyed, a killing machine who has become dishonored by the FBI and subsequently disillusioned. Moore isn't bad, of course, but there just isn't enough emotion running through her to help us out through this film - and without that, we are left with Hannibal, who is interesting and watchable enough to justify the time, yet the graphic scenes of violence do nothing for the film other than draw attention away from the story, such as it is.

Most of us would probably prefer not to take a moral high ground on the violence, because what would that make us? Promoters of censorship? Tipper Gore? Even more disturbing, perhaps, is the idea that since this film made so much money, we'll be getting more of it, each time upping the ante with violent imagery as we become bored with the last. It's hard to believe that a film would receive an NC-17 rating for full frontal male nudity yet a scene where a man's face is torn off by a ravenous pig gets an R. I'd rather have seen the naked guy.

Even so, it is hard not to be drawn in to the character of Hannibal. He is every bit as mesmerizing as he was in the original, a testament to the endless talents of Anthony Hopkins. He seems to revel in playing the part, slipping back into it as comfortably as it were his favorite sneakers. We are fascinated by him, perhaps to our detriment. Is that what Thomas Harris was ultimately trying to tell us? To hold up the mirror and make us sick at the sight of what, in essence, we have begged for? More Hannibal. And we will be getting more Hannibal. Probably a lot more.

CineScene, 2001