Catching Wind of Catching Fire

I caught the new movie Catching Fire last night and it was pretty...not that bad. I might even go so far as to say I was pleasantly surprised! Probably not enough to convince myself to read the books, but definitely enough to see the third one. While I will be no where near as scathing as this review, I would like to point out some interesting and unexpected aspects of the movie. No spoilers if you haven't seen it.

The movie seems to feature every classic dystopian stereotype you could imagine. Oppressive governmental regimes, a complete lack of privacy, revolution cusps...the list goes on and on. The Games themselves are really just a gladiator style starving people pacifier. One where people watch violent entertainment to distract them from their real problems, namely: starvation. While that is always usually pretty interesting, I feel the idea, having been used since ancient Rome, is a little tired. What I did enjoy is the idea of fashion and public image as either a means of pacification and distraction or a subtle nod to dissension or revolution. Katniss's (spelling? Who cares!) stylist was always using her wardrobe as a canvas for government subordination, but also subtle acts of rebellion. I enjoyed that the upper class was obsessed with what the famous pledges were wearing. Phillip Seymour Hoffman (What?) had an interesting spiel about destroying public image, how when we juxtapose our public heroes' seemingly lavish lifestyle from their ideas, we distance them from the very people they fight for. Think Michelle Obama for instance, do a segment on her wardrobe following a story about poor people and suddenly she's a villainous bitch. Thanks Fox News!

I also feel that I finally understand the Hunger Games. Usually in a dystopian novel, you observe some criticism of the world we currently live in, like in 1984; it seems the government is infringing on our freedom of speech, ten years later, here we are. I never quite saw what was happening in our current day and age that would eventually lead us to forcing kids to kill each other. As a result I always thought it was a cheap way to add sentimentality to the gladiator style, distraction, cheap, dystopian story. After watching this movie with an outstanding adult cast that essentially did nothing and watching these kids bear the emotional acting weight of the film, I realized that is exactly the point. It's a generational allegory! The youth are meant to bear what the adults can't handle and the adults sit idly by because of guilt or disenfranchisement or pure hopelessness. I thought that was way more exciting and interestingly toyed with.

Overall though, I felt pretty lost. Having not read the books was frustrating, I thought the first movie was so full of holes and awkward that much of the excellently crafted symbolism in the second was lost on me. I also didn't really care about many of the characters, there were too many with fragmented back stories that came out of no where, but that I was expected to care about. When certain characters died it played out like it was sad, which people dying usually is, but I mostly found this sucking the development time away from characters I actually wanted to see and learn more about.

One more thing! I thought the way the score was used is really interesting too. It's a triumphant and short little tune complete with royal sounding brass and base drums. What I liked is that it was only really played in moments of extreme gaudiness or to honor dead people within the actual games. This made the theme song that sounded victorious seem desperate and haunting. I thought that was neat.

I think the whole movie is neat. Go ahead and read the Wikipedia article about the first movie, then treat yourself to the second.

Thanks for Listening,
Kyle