The Psychological Hunger Games

Rating: 8/10 (1 June 2015)

The latest installment of the Hunger Games, Mockingjay, Part 1, is a movie that has caused a lot of controversy among its fans. Mockingjay, Part 1 picks up where Catching Fire left off, with the resistance having rescued Katniss but left Peeta to a potentially disturbing fate in the capitol. Katniss herself seems a bit disturbed--like it or not, her courage, compassion and honesty have left her as the face of the resistance--a role that she is clearly uncomfortable with. The movie is mostly a character study of her, as she balances her love for Peeta against her role as the Mockingjay, while also fighting the fact that she is still a very young woman.
I will first say, however, that I understand why people are upset about this movie. The spectacular action and cliff-hanging thrills of the first two movies are mostly gone. Those looking for the slick and admittedly thrilling tension of the teenage violence of the first two movies will miss it very much here.
That said, this movie is really interesting on its own merits, as it tries to do something both engaging and different. Mockingjay creates a sense of tension quite engaging for moviegoers who like character studies. Katniss has to decide, for example, does she really want to be the Mockingjay--ie, symbol of the resistance? The resistance is portrayed cleverly in the movie, as the good-guy, except that they too engage in a highly specious propaganda and behavior that seems more sketchy than meets the eye.
At the same time, Peeta is in the hands of the government, but he appears to have turned traitor to the resistance as the government uses him as a propaganda tool. Or has he turned traitor? The film is admirably not clear. What is clear, however, is that Katniss's actions, as the lightning rod of the resistance, could get him killed, so she has that weighing on her as well.
Additionally, the film's treatment of the notion of propaganda itself is ingenious--who would ever have conceived of a teenage movie on this topic? And yet, Mockingjay makes us understand how images can or cannot be manufactured for the purposes of swaying and deceiving a crowd. Much of the movie consists of the conflict of the resistance trying to produce effective propaganda--in other words, lies--from a character as relentlessly honest and principled as Katniss. This is again really interesting.
I realize that this movie is not for everyone, but I personally thought it might be the best of the three. Jennifer Lawrence plays it brilliantly, as a teenage girl constantly on the verge of coming unhinged (which is exactly what the movie is about), on the one hand overwhelmed by the awesome responsibilities that seemed to be thrust upon her, on the other hand a young woman in love trying to save her endangered beloved. Only Lawrence could do it, as she seems to possess some special quality of emotion or spirit that only 1 in 10000 people have. She walks through the movie actually torn apart by its conflicts (or at least she seems to!) and that in itself is really impressive.