MUBI

Whenever a character breaks the so called fourth wall by looking into the camera and thus, into the audience of a film, its purpose varies from either being a direct confrontation or a kind of siding with the people that’s watching. This involutory contrivance that makes the watcher either uneasy or an accomplice, is essential in The Silence of the Lambs due to the fact that American audiences are looking into a mirror that can show them their frightening reality or the will to stop it.

The Silence of the Lambs is a story defined by the traumas and memories that can frighten one enough to become either a monster or a hero, and though in the end anyone can choose, the violent history of the enigmatic America has given birth to some of the most savage and cruel serial murders in history. Fortunately enough many heroes like Jodie Foster’s Clarice Starling have emerged too.

When coming out of the traumatic visions of her father’s coffin, the female student to become FBI agent is an individual determined to put an end to the suffering of her country, the screaming of the lambs she tells about to Anthony Hopkins’ flawless and frightening Dr. Hannibal Lecter whose help is required when a transsexual-like serial killer nicknamed Buffalo Bill is on the loose. Clarice’s psychological depth thrills Lecter and to a certain extent enamors him and starts a quid pro quo game in which she gives the brilliant psychologist-turned-cannibal bits of her memories and receives in turn pieces of the puzzle of Buffalo Bill’s head in order to apprehend him before he kills a senator’s daughter.

Hannibal, as he is commonly known, is arguably the most important character in the story, as well as a kind of artifact that reveals throughout the vivid and exciting flow of the film the causes for the main protagonist and antagonist to become what they are: Clarice is the daughter of a dead police officer who seeks to drown the sorrows and pains of the innocent, while Buffalo Bill is a rejected sociopath whose life makes him think he will be accepted after becoming into a woman. Both of these characters are the children of pain in different circumstances and both have taken different paths, but both are part of the same organism: America.

The political comment in the film is not a mere interpretation of the film’s characters but also of the fantastic production design, which shows American flags within many of the sets that represent its character’s minds, whether it be Clarice’s institutional FBI HQ, a madman’s warehouse or Buffalo Bill’s “laboratory” or whatever it might be called, an American flag is always part of the scenario, avoiding us from making any mistake: this is an American tale.

An extension of the political theme comes when the senator whose daughter’s been captured by Buffalo Bill, accepts to make a deal with Hannibal in order to get solid information that leads to the killer before he harms his latest victim -an “American girl”, according to the song by Tom Petty that sounds right before being captured. Though the pact doesn’t allow him to go completely free since he’s too dangerous, it highlights the fact that Bill’s other victims couldn’t have had this chance and so, the powerful remain virtually untouchable by disrespecting the very institutions they’ve sworn to protect.

In terms of realism, the film is fantastic and highly true to its depiction of FBI proceedings to capture serial killers, something that should be thanked to agent John Douglas who helped Jonathan Demme and his crew by supervising every detail and even helping the actors to prepare for their roles. This sensation of watching a tale that’s real enough to be disregarded as just a film, is also created by the wonderful acting. Clarice’s troubled internal world is easily seen through Jodie Foster’s stare, a trademark highlighted by the excellent cinematography, which also aides Anthony Hopkins’ perfect role that can’t be described without any other adjective and needs to be seen to be believed.

Charged with a political comment that doesn’t diverge the audience from its main plot, The Silence of the Lambs is a rich psychological gender bender that doesn’t need too much explanation and that grips you even after it ends, for it goes beyond the film theater and sticks in your head like a trauma. Fortunately enough this one is highly enjoyable.

Foster and Hopkins give star performances. Levine is creepy as Buffalo Bill. But, this movie simply did not impress me as much as the other two movies to hold the honor of winning the Oscar big five awards. The movie didn’t give me a sense of release, a sense of “Oh Wow” when Foster finds her way to Buffalo Bill’s house independent of her boss at the FBI. I didn’t understand the prevalence of close up shots of the actors’ faces. There are a lot of foreheads half cut off in this movie. I guess it heighten the suspense a bit to see the sweat and muscle twitches in the characters’ faces. But for a thriller it didn’t have any amazing twists that really make you appreciate the writing. At least I didn’t think so. The lambs, the moths, the sewing, the cannibalism were all supposed to be mysterious elements that suggest a creative and disturbing story, but it didn’t all add together to something greater than the parts. Dr. Hannibal Lecter making his escape was probably the most fascinating, terrifying, and shocking part.