Suzanne Collins – the author of The Hunger Games books on which the movie series is based – has a wild imagination. Who could have thought up a story where one nation with more resources and technology subjects other nations to inhumane conditions, mistreatment, and military rule? When some of the unchosen rebels fight back, the powerful side uses this as justification to hurt the already-suffering innocent civilians in the name of their own protection. I can’t possibly understand the creativity she possesses to imagine a world like this. Astonishing.
The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes (dir. Francis Lawrence) is the prequel to the very successful Hunger Games films starring Jennifer Lawrence.
This film is set 64 years before the previous film series and explores how Coriolanus Snow (Tom Blyth) turns into big bad President Snow. Snow is a poor boy pretending that he belongs in the rich kid’s world in the capital. His father was well-known but a war criminal. He needs to get a scholarship into university or his cousin Tigris (Hunter Schafer) and Grandma will be in an even more dire financial situation.
To throw a spanner in the works, the scholarship he should get is changed. The Hunger Games that were started as punishment for the 12 districts isn’t getting the TV attention the capital needs so they are now giving each Tribute (the kids taken from the district to fight in the Hunger Games) their own mentor.
Dean Casca Highbottom (Peter Dinklage) and Games Master Dr Volumnia Gaul (Viola Davis) play potential foils to Snow’s plan of having his tribute win the Hunger Games. Snow convinces them that people need to care about the tributes to want to watch, and to care about them they need to know about them.
Snow’s tribute Lucy Gray Baird (Rachel Zegler) buys into the idea of winning the crowd to help her chances in the games. The problem is that the story didn’t take this advice and there are so many mentors and tributes that get essentially no screen time that people die or leave and you don’t feel one way or the other.
Throughout the film, there is an attempt to interrogate the idea of whether the Hunger Games is a just decision for the previous wars and whether the capital should be imposing military rule on the districts. However, even with the film’s very long run time they never really answered anything, or even asked very good questions.
It felt like it was coming to an end and then another chapter of the film began. I have never been a fan of breaking up books into more films. I thought that when they did this with Harry Potter, The Hobbit, and The Hunger Games that the two films were decidedly weaker than one tight but slightly longer film.
In this case, I think the film would have been better served by being broken into two films. The first film has Snow learning about the suffering of others and becomes more idealistic, then the second film is where he is in the districts and starts to become more selfish. It would also be great if his heel turn wasn’t because he got a broken heart. Please give us males more credit than that.
If you love The Hunger Games universe you will probably find this way more enjoyable than I did. I don’t understand prequels: we all know where it will all end up. I would much rather have a story in the universe but not require it to reference things and play fan service, that is the world I want to live in. Perhaps my imagination is too wild for this world.
Sun, 19 Nov 2023, Luke McMeeken-Ruscoe