I’ve been waiting for this one for a while; while the first Hunger Games film was revered by many, I still think it was an overhyped, overproduced garbage teen romance-drama film masquerading as a thriller - incidentally, with set and costume design apparently by Dr. Seuss, such extravagance successfully representing a culture obsessed with superficiality. It was a film which started with a very unique and intriguing premise, wherein a totalitarian state frightens its populace into submission by annually forcing their teenagers into a televised fight to the death. Sounds promising, but after ten minutes they pushed this to the sideline in order to focus primarily on the sappy, insipid romantic drama elements. I have been told that there is only so much one can do with such source material, but as I have said many times before, this is no excuse. The source text is not Holy Gospel, and should never be immune to alterations, or even - and especially - improvements, when adapting to another medium. Anyway, I’ve been looking forward to this film, as I didn’t have the opportunity to decry the first film when it was released, so I wanted to take the opportunity to do so here.
The first film had all the depth of a plate, essentially being Twilight: Orwellian Dystopia Edition. - and it should be interesting to note how many of these Twilight clones we have been granted of late. It was a predictable film where the characters were not characters, but unsophisticated caricatures, specifically of benevolence, selflessness and idealism (or in the case of the villains, malevolence, cynicism, and opportunism). The worst part was that the interesting, political premise was downplayed, because apparently we want to see the two leads confess their love to each other for the fifteenth time, as though we had not had enough of this in recent pop culture.
By contrast, Catching Fire surprisingly manages to flesh out the interesting aspects of the first film. The worst parts of the first film are still here; however, Catching Fire has a far greater emphasis on political intrigue and backroom politics, martial law, and the dystopian concepts alluded to in its predecessor. After approximately ten minutes of uneventful and inconsequential proceedings in the beginning, a truly powerful and confronting scene follows in which a man is executed without mercy or humanity for merely raising his hand in a gesture of solidarity with Katniss. The power in this scene is not merely because a man dies - rather, it is because of the cruelty, the lack of humanity and dignity, and how it invokes feelings of powerlessness and helplessness. There is no appeal to mercy or sympathy for these people, and we are trapped in a cycle of cause and effect we are powerless to stop. This incredible scene really sets the tone for the rest of the film, illustrating how brutal and unforgiving this regime can be. Additionally, much of the first half of the film centers around the bureaucracy and inner sanctum of the nation’s political structure, and the relationship between fear and power, especially the sensationalist television and media culture upon which the entire setup rests.
As well as greater political intrigue, Catching Fire has a vastly improved array of characters. While Katniss is still as dull as ever, possessing benevolence as her sole character trait, and the reprised male leads seemingly being able only to fall in love with Katniss, the rest of the characters are surprisingly colourful, dynamic, and complex. One key to complex character development is creating human beings who have more to them than they appear - and Katniss certainly doesn’t fit this bill. On the other hand, people such as Finnick, Beetee and Johanna are scripted such that I want to learn more about who they are. That kind of intrigue is invaluable when creating a believable story with believable people in it. Much of the second half of the film is focussed on the interplay between the various characters, which is fascinating and well written for the most part.
I feel I’ve been too kind to Catching Fire as I write this, because as a film it still leaves a lot to be desired. While some of the characters are well written and well defined, most of them are plagued with stifled, unnatural acting. The two main protagonists are guilty of this, particularly in the first half - however, the two main villains are the worst offenders. The President and the Gamemaker are atrociously written as characters, particularly the latter, and they act like cliché villains. They are not convincing at all, sounding as though they are trying too hard to sound evil, rather than being genuine. As for their discussions together, they contain simplistic ideas about power and authority with nothing realistic, compelling, or subtle - indeed, at one point one of them talks about “shutting down the Black Markets”, forgetting that if one could shut them down so easily, they wouldn’t be “Black Markets”.
The generic romantic aspects are still very present, however they are downplayed this time for the sake of the more interesting parts. Every love scene is still cringeworthy, though, because unless you are a fifteen year old girl, chances are you don’t care about how much Person A “loves” Person B, and yet the film seems to take itself way too seriously on this front. It’s fine to use romance as a catalyst for more interesting things (as but one example, kill one off to induce grief in the other), but it should never be a central focus. In Catching Fire, the focus seems to switch intermittently between the romance and something else; and when we do have a romantic love scene, absolutely everything is dropped to dedicate itself to this. The music turns into an uplifting, emotional orchestral backing, there are long takes of lovers staring into each others eyes, and this can go on for several minutes. It’s not a good sign when a film puts all its effort into something as inconsequential as romance.
The thing about The Hunger Games that I’ve noticed is that it lacks perspective. There is a great idea here, about proletariats under large scale dystopian military rule, and how the oligarchical leaders use fear and distraction to gain power. Given more weight, this could be a remarkably compelling work of fiction - and yet it can only seem to focus on the petty emotional problems of a few teenagers. There’s little sense of the bigger picture being given any consideration, which makes the story seem both dishonest and insincere. As an audience, we know that there is much more to this world than the personal feelings of the teen characters; however, the first film swept all that to one side so it could focus near entirely on their emotional problems. Indeed, much of the beginning of Catching Fire centers around Katniss and Peeta (I’ve never understood why science-fiction writers feel the need to misspell familiar names to make them sound “futuristic”) trying to sell their romantic involvement to the population, while simultaneously struggling with angst because “they don’t really love each other”. That’s about as far removed from the big picture as one can get - it’s petty, it’s uninteresting, and it’s shallow. Thankfully, this is shaken up very effectively when the old man is executed, which puts everything into perspective for the two protagonists.
What is interesting about The Hunger Games, and particularly this sequel, is that it’s almost a deconstruction of our pop culture in general, particularly regarding films. The way we love to watch violence, spectacle, and superficiality is mirrored in this story, and how it works as an effective distraction from real world issues. There are people in the world who do live in poverty, struggling to get by with no help, and some societies are under martial law similar to that seen in these films. We in the first world, on the other hand, fill our heads with television and pop-culture obsessions to such an absurd degree that we have little room to genuinely care about these things, let alone do anything to amend them. The Hunger Games shows us how much we love violence and spectacle on TV by itself being about violence and spectacle - and the on-screen audience mirrors ourselves. With actual on-screen discussion about these ideas in the sequel which was absent from the first, The Hunger Games comes across as having developed a certain level of self awareness, and an understanding of what it's trying to be.
So while the worst of The Hunger Games is still around in Catching Fire, it has been subsequently diminished to make room for some more interesting ideas. I went into the first film expecting great things and was consequently disappointed, but this time the reverse is true. I enjoyed this film for bringing to the surface some of the subdued elements of the first film, and even the survivalist scenes are well directed, gripping and tense. Unfortunately, the series suffers from being based on teen/young adult fantasy novels, and so only a certain amount of depth is achievable, but despite this the producers seem to be doing the best they can, and for that I applaud them.
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