In a not-too-distant future, North America has collapsed, weakened by drought, fire, famine, and war to be replaced by Panem, a country divided into the Capitol and 12 districts. Each year two young representatives from each district are selected by lottery to participate in The Hunger Games. Part entertainment, part brutal intimidation of the subjugated districts, the televised games are broadcast throughout Panem. The 24 participants are forced to eliminate their competitors, literally, with all citizens required to watch. When 16-year-old Katniss’ young sister, Prim, is selected as the mining district’s female representative, Katniss volunteers to take her place. She and her male counterpart Peeta, will be pitted against bigger, stronger representatives who have trained for this their whole lives. -Suzanne Collins
So I’m a huge fan of the book and have been waiting for this movie for a couple of years, so expectations were bound to fall short. Still, I liked it enough to actually watch the movie for a second time in the cinema, and I don’t even remember when was the last time I ever did that. But I think that it’s not really the movie that I am a huge fan of, but the story per se, and by story I mean the book. Okay I know it’s confusing.
What I mean to say is when I watched the movie, I watched it with a heightened knowledge unavailable to other movie goers. You know, like when you attend a friend’s wedding and they say vows that make you cry because you know the back story of this couple, like maybe all the struggles they had to undergo for this relationship to work out?
Like in this movie, the moment Effie fishes through the bowl of names and pulls out Prim’s name, it always makes me end up in tears (and by “always” I mean when I watched the trailers and both times I saw the movie), because I know Prim better than the other moviegoers do. They have only heard her utter a few words, but I know her history, how she is such a kind little girl who couldn’t bear to hurt even animals, and how much Katniss loves her.
And as Katniss goes on stage and Effie asks the audience to give her a round of applause, my tears keep falling when she is met by silence. The movie cannot explain what I also know: that the silence is a defiance, the boldest form of dissent they can manage which says: “We do not agree. We do not condone. All of this wrong.” And that the three-fingered salute they gave Katniss is an old and rarely used gesture of their district, occasionally seen at funerals which means thanks, admiration, and a goodbye to someone you love.
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| Me replicating Katniss’s gesture. And her hair. LOL. |
Another scene that always gets me in tears is Rue’s death, but even those who haven’t read the book tear up at that.
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| Katniss pays tribute to Rue |
It’s hard to watch the movie without comparing it to the book, but I tried my best. At first I thought the first part was a bit dragging and they shouldn’t have changed certain portions from the book, like how the Mockingjay pin came into Katniss’s possession, because the way it happened in the book was better, but I suppose they had their reasons for doing it.
What I can’t stand, however, is how the movie Peeta is a lot different from the book Peeta that I fell in love with. The book Peeta was nice and noble and willing to give up his life for his love for Katniss, but in the movie, it seemed like Katniss was more into Peeta than vice versa and it was just so not like that in the book. Still, I couldn’t help but get chills at their romantic scenes.
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| “You call that a kiss? -H” |
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| The star-crossed lovers of District 12 are the champions of the 74th Hunger Games |
Here are a few more things that the movie did not explain well, hence resulting to a lot of questions from friends.
– It’s called “Hunger Games” because the capitol keeps the districts hungry by giving them little food rations (that’s why Katniss must hunt) and part of the victor’s prize is a year’s supply of food for his/her district.
– Peeta purposely burned his mother’s bakery bread just so he could throw the ruined bread to a starving Katniss. Thanks to his act of kindness, Katniss and her family were saved from starvation, after which Katniss was given hope which then drove her to start hunting. To Katniss, therefore, Peeta was synonymous to hope.
-The mockingjay was a symbol of the Capitol’s failure, and therefore a symbol of defiance to the Capitol.
– Haymitch drank a lot due to depression, because he had to watch helplessly as all the teens he has had to be a mentor to died in the arena. When Peeta and Katniss fought him over the dining table, he realized that he finally had tributes who had a chance to win, so he decided to clean up his act and help them in any way he could.
Still, I know friends who loved the movie so much that it propelled them to start reading the book. So perhaps the movie in itself was good, despite certain missing information. Despite my so-called gripes, I actually did like it, especially the second time around. And can I just say that Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss is so beautiful? She’s not stunning at first glance, but she becomes even more beautiful the more you look at her.
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