Chrysanthemums and cannibals

Nobody goes to the movies anymore, at least not on weekdays. It’s been years since I’ve seen a full movie house, much less an SRO crowd. On weekday afternoons in Makati, all my fellow viewers are senior citizens, who get in for free; many of them fall asleep in the first 15 minutes. I’m guessing the cost is an issue — P160 per person, plus popcorn, drinks, gas or transportation; no wonder people prefer to stay home and watch DVDs, whatever their provenance. And who has the time, besides columnists and bloggers who need something to write about?

The Curse of the Golden Flower is a movie that must be seen on the biggest screen possible. It’s a Chinese epic, which means "More! Bigger! More magnificent!" and it is directed by Zhang Yimou (Hero, House of Flying Daggers), so add two exclamation points to each adjective. Set in the Tang Dynasty in 928 AD, Curse is the story of the power struggle between the Emperor (Chow Yun Fat) and the Empress (Gong Li, reunited with the director of Raise The Red Lantern and Ju Dou). The palace intrigues culminate in a coup attempt on the Chrysanthemum Festival and some of the most amazing battle scenes ever filmed: you’ve never seen so much gleaming armor in your life, or so many chrysanthemums. Or so many push-up bras: thousands of ladies-in-waiting in corset-like tops that push their breasts up to just below chin level, like an epic advertisement for Wonderbra.

The plot is similar to that of the recent The Banquet, with its Hamlet and Macbeth undertones and the themes of madness and incest, but Curse has greater emotional wallop. Gong Li sinks her teeth into the role of the Empress who is gradually being driven mad, but Chow Yun Fat seems oddly torpid. As with all Chinese film epics there are physical stunts that leave your jaw clattering on the floor, although I am glad there is none of that flying-on-treetops silliness that makes me roll my eyeballs till they hurt. Warriors armed with sickles swoop down soundlessly from cliffs on harnesses. Swords scrape against intricately-detailed armor in showers of sparks. The invading army marches across a vast field of golden flowers, only to find itself hemmed in by armor-plated siege towers. The warriors raise their lances to form a ramp, and run up the towers. Soon the chrysanthemums are drenched in blood, echoing the red and gold pillars of the palace and the costumes of the royal family, which are soon to be smeared with blood. Then serfs instantly sweep away the bloody flowers and replace them with fresh blooms. It is the ultimate production designers’ fantasy: too fabulous to describe without sounding like a luxury goods catalogue.

Gong Li turns up also in Hannibal Rising as the Lady Murasaki, the Japanese wife of Hannibal Lecter’s uncle. If you thought the sight of Ray Liotta speaking as his brains were scooped out and eaten would put an end to the audiences’ craving tales of Lecter, you are clearly not a movie executive. Hannibal Rising is the fifth movie featuring the epicurean cannibal; there are now as many Hannibal movies are there are Rambos, and nearly as many Rocky Balboas. The difference — apart from Rocky being a hero and Hannibal being a serial killer — is that in the best Hannibal movies (Michael Mann’s Manhunter with Brian Cox as the brisk sociopath, and Jonathan Demme’s The Silence of the Lambs, a.k.a. "Helllloooo Clareeeece..."), Lecter has a supporting role as a consultant to a criminal investigation. (Red Dragon, in which the hideously deformed murderer is portrayed by... Ralph Fiennes is best forgotten. Ridley Scott’s Hannibal was baroque camp.) The character is best appreciated when he has limited screen time, and his motives are left to the audience’s imagination.

Lecter is the main protagonist in Hannibal Rising — we see him with our own eyes, not through the investigator’s, and somehow he is less interesting. This prequel is directed by Peter Webber from a screenplay by Thomas Harris himself — Hannibal has eaten his own author. The movie is not as bad as one might think, except that it should never have existed in the first place. It opens in World War II with the German bombardment of Lithuania. The nobleman Lecter, his wife, their son Hannibal and daughter Mischa, take refuge in their lodge in the forest. Soon the adults are killed in a bombing raid, and the children are set upon by local bandits in league with the Nazis. It’s the dead of winter, there’s nothing to eat... guess what happens.

That is the great big problem with this movie: it attempts to justify Hannibal Lecter’s actions as if his sociopathic behavior could be attributed to a childhood trauma. As if anything could justify mass murder. Yeah, blame the environment, blame the nasty bandits, but don’t blame the poor, violent, man-eating serial murderer. If only the adorable cannibal (played by Gaspard Ulliel, who is pretty) had a Tyra or a Doctor Phil to unburden himself to ("They ate my sister!") he could’ve been rehabilitated. He could’ve become an art history professor who makes excellent brochettes with cheeks (or, as we call it, sisig) and wild mushrooms, and does ikebana and plays the lute in his spare time. But then we wouldn’t be interested in him, would we?

Our fascination with the character is rooted in his monstrousness. He is very far outside the bounds of "normal," acceptable behavior, and he should stay there. Hannibal Lecter is a monster, and you don’t explain monsters. You don’t make excuses for them; if you could, then they’re not monsters. And therefore less fascinating. To reduce Hannibal to a psychologically damaged man who is therefore not responsible for what he does, or a victim of war who is out for revenge — the old Hannibal would find that rude. Why can’t he be evil just because he is? The old Hannibal Lecter would eat these filmmakers with some fava beans and a nice Chianti.