#025 The Silence of the Lambs

"I can't decide between Lamb or Duck"

"Well, of course, Lambs are scarier, otherwise the film would've been called 'Silence of the Ducks'."

I actually thought this film was going to be scary. The name sounds very scary. It's a reference to the lead character's childhood, when she ran way from home on the farm in order to escape the awful sound of the crying lambs. Or something like that.

Hmm, so its a crime thriller about a Cannibal and a dude that takes collects bits of people and puts them together in a Frankensteinian way. I didn't at first realise that it was a part of a series of movies, but now that I know it seems to make more sense. It seemed rather random and kind of oddly paced. It dives right into a story about a student who's made to go see a crazy, albeit brilliant, psychology doctor slash cannibal. Isn't that just odd? I'm told this is the highlight of the series, which doesn't exactly tempt me to see the rest. It wasn't bad, but not good enough that I'd want to watch the rest.

It definitely seemed unfinished. It ends with a cliffhanger. It seemed as there were really two plots going on at once. What should've been the main plot, the hunt for Buffalo Bill, seemed to be more like the sub-plot and felt kind of half-hearted. The second plot was of course about the escape of Hannibal Lecter, which is also the cliffhanger at the end, when he succeeds. The movie really felt like an extended TV show episode, where there was a plot for that episode, but it was part of a bigger plot for the whole series.

I was a little disappointed, although I guess I had no reason to be. No-one had told me anything about the film so I didn't know what to expect. I guess I'd just heard a lot about it from popular culture (hence the quote above) and assumed that it would be brilliant. Also being in the top 250 movies of all time (or even, the top 25) is enough for me to have high assumptions.

I guess it was an interesting character study, if you look at it that way. The psychology of the three main characters (Agent Starling, Hannibal Lecter and Buffalo Bill) was explored extensively and it was quite interesting to see from this perspective.