Review of Hannibal Rising
I went to see Hannibal Rising last Friday, its opening day. I saw it at the 12:45 showing, which had more to do with the fact that I am unemployed and needed the matinée prices than it did with my eagerness to see the movie.
The early afternoon crowd was rather interesting. It was older than I would have expected, especially for a psychological thriller / horror movie such as this. Most interesting was the elderly woman down front who crocheted through the whole movie.
The Hannibal Lecter films now number four. Silence of the Lambs was first, of course. It came out in 1991 and won five Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Actor, and Best Actress. Hannibal came out ten years later, followed by Red Dragon the following year. Hannibal Rising, the fourth in the series, is actually the first chronologically. It tells the story of the young Hannibal Lecter from his childhood in Eastern Europe during World War II and his subsequent years in medical school in France.
It turns out Hannibal is from Lithuania. Never mind the fact that no Lithuanian in the history of the world has ever named his child Hannibal. It is not a Lithuanian name. It is a Semitic name, although I couldn’t imagine even a Litvak naming their child Hannibal. Of course, the name was chosen long before the back story of him in Lithuania was written, the name being chosen because it rhymed with cannibal.
[Please note: the rest of this post contains spoilers about Hannibal Rising. Do not read on if you don’t want to know things about the plot.]
