Between hope and fear

Rating: 8/10 (5 December 2013)

The Hunger Games, the first installment of a series of film adaptations of Suzanne Collins' novel trilogy, was one of the surprises of the film year 2012. The Gary Ross directed film combined blockbuster appeal with sharp and uncompromising social analysis painting a clear picture of the mechanisms of totalitarianism, combined with sharp media criticism. In the story of the young girl participating in a cynical game in which children and teenagers slaughter each other until only one survives, the film envisioned a dystopia that combined insights into totalitarian systems with popular forms of media entertainment such as reality TV and casting shows that served to show how closely the perverted lust of seeing people exposed and the collective cruelty of a suppressive state are aligned. The majority, that concept on which democratic society is built, here appeared in all the dark side it also possesses. It is the individual, the thinking, feeling and conscientious human who is the only source of hope, the individual who in turn can be the root of a new, hopefully better majority.
The series' second installment, entitled Catching Fire picks up where part one ended. In an act of defiance, the film's hero, Katniss tricked the system into allowing herself as well as her friend Peeta to win the games together, Torn between feelings of guilt about having killed, the pressure of society and the demands of a rising rebellious spirit, Katniss must continue to find her way while she still has not finished growing up. Catching Fire, directed by Francis Lawrence, remains close to the visual style and story-telling technique of its predecessor. The focus remains on Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss. Close-ups of her, moving from face to hands to fragments of her body, representing a more and more fragmented soul, still provide the key visual technique of the film. Lawrence is an actress who can condense complex inner struggles, difficult decision making processes and battles between hope and fear, defiance and desperation into a single look, into minimal changes of expression, into tiny movements, the clenching of a fist, a sudden rigidity in her body. The film makes ample use of this as it focuses on the inner fight of the protagonist.
For Catching Fire moves its perspective much more inside the individual than the first part did. The mechanisms that allow a totalitarian system to work and also the deformations it causes are concentrated in the individual self. This is true for the first part in which Katniss tries to come to terms with who she is expected to be and the choices she has to conform to the demands of one side or the other. But it remains true later on when again she is sent into the arena to fight for her life, a fight that ends in a much different twist as the revolution finally begins. Here Catching Fire is as adept at fulfilling all demands on action-packed entertainment while never losing its focus. As close as the camera remains on her and her comrades, as close remains the perspective on the specific human cost of totalitarianism.
The biting media satire is as sharp as in the first film, the contrasts between a decadent ruling class and the suppressed majority are depicted even more sharply and relentlessly. While the amount of killing scenes is reduced, there is no softening of the uncompromising starkness with which human suffering is being presented. The film's only weakness might be that the price of focusing on the protagonists is that the characterization of the characters further to the fringe is somewhat sketchier. This however is compensated by an even more stellar cast including memorable performances by Jeffrey Wright, Amanda Plummer and the scarily indecipherable Philip Seymour Hoffman as the new head game maker. Jennifer Lawrence once again proves to be a rare talent, Woody Harrelson as her mentor impresses once more and Josh Hutcherson really come into his own as the dignified, honest and relentlessly fighting Peeta, Katniss' reasonable counterpart.
More than its predecessor, Catching Fire is conceived as part of a series. It reduces the explanation of what happened before to a minimum and ends with a true cliffhanger. This, however, does not take anything away from the film's quality. Catching Fire marries blockbuster spectacle with intelligent soul searching, biting satire with psychological drama, entertainment with a serious message. As the first installment, it proves that giving an audience what they want and getting them to think and reflect are not mutually exclusive. The third book will be split into two films, again directed by Lawrence. It is to be hoped that they will share all that made the first two films such compelling and outstanding film making.
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