An iconic thriller !!!

Rating: 9/10 (14 June 2016)

Directed by Jonathan Demme and written by Ted Tally, 'The Silence of the Lambs' is based on the novel of the same name by Thomas Harris. One of the first themes that one can notice while watching the film is the element of feminism. This film has feminism and feminist ideals written all over it. What makes this work is that Demme in collaboration with Tally conveys these feminist ideas through visual filmmaking and frame compositions instead of blatant verbal delivery. The opening of the film itself is an example of this. This opening credits sequence which apparently was something Jodie Foster came up with starts with the image of barren, dry, leafless trees in a deserted foggy forest. Then Clarice appears out of this fog and we follow her as she runs and overcomes one obstacle after another on her own. This is visual storytelling at its best. The foggy, deserted, barren forest is what society can sometimes look like from a female perspective. Then we see this woman appear and face and overcome hurdles and obstacles alone and showcase her capabilities. Another great frame is that of Clarice getting dwarfed in the elevator by the big burly men standing alongside her. Clarice Sterling is an iconic female hero, but not in the clichéd sense of the word. She is strong, intelligent and idealistic. But she is still given the chance to have a sense of fear and be vulnerable which actually makes her real and very inspirational.
Another theme that I noticed in the film is the feeling of being trapped and the desire of breaking out. This theme actually binds the three characters Clarice, Hannibal and Buffalo Bill together. Clarice feels trapped in an environment which is predominantly numbered by men. But her way of overcoming this feeling is to work hard and make herself someone that the others can't take lightly. Buffalo Bill had been a victim of abuse in his past life and this had led him to hate everything about himself including his body which leads him to believe he is transsexual. So he feels trapped in his male body and wants to become a woman. This theme also applies to Hannibal Lecter, but in a much more literal sense. He is literally trapped in prisons and cages and he wants to break free.
There are two transformations or desired transformations juxtaposed in the narrative of the film. The first desired transformation is Clarice's. We can see in her a determination to transform herself from the sweet, innocent girl seen in the flashback scenes to a hardened strong FBI officer. But she doesn't lose her femininity while trying to transform. Buffalo Bill on the other wants to completely lose his masculinity by using a female armour. The irony is that Bill wants to become a woman even though he treats women as objects and considers them to be fragile, weak and loves to exert his power on them.
The film is brilliantly directed. Jonathan Demme uses a lot of filmmaking techniques. There are a number of tracking shots, POV shots and close-ups in the film. Demme manages to keep the film flowing and very tightly paced. But I think the best directorial decision that Demme makes here is the artistic use of close-ups. Time and again in other films, directors have used POV shots of men and especially criminals while they size up their female prey in the creepiest sense like we have seen in Michael Powell's masterpiece 'Peeping Tom'. Demme reverses that by showing us the male gaze from the woman's perspective. The men who talk to Clarice talk straight into the camera and we see what Clarice sees in their eyes. Apart from this theme, the close- ups also help the viewers in assessing the nature of these characters. Cheekily Demme reverses it again in the final set-piece and shows us Buffalo Bill's POV while he watches Clarice struggle in the dark. I would also like to mention Howard Shore's music which I thought also helped maintain the tempo of the film.
The acting is pretty spectacular. Jodie Foster just through her facial expressions lets us in on what she is thinking. She acts a lot with her eyes and her face. She gives a humanity to Clarice's character as well as making her strong and determined. Anthony Hopkins' portrayal of Hannibal Lecter has become legendary. His portrayal is not realistic. He is over-the-top and very theatrical in almost a Shakespearean way. Some critics have criticised his portrayal for this very reason. But I think in the context of the film that he is in, a sedate, understated performance wouldn't have worked. The film doesn't restrict itself fully to the boundaries of realism, so some theatricality from Hopkins I feel benefited it and Hopkins is great with his intimidating eyes and distinctive vocal style of speaking. He blends disturbing psychotic antics with refined and classy gestures to make the character of Hannibal Lecter immensely complicated and deranged. The conversational scenes between Hannibal and Clarice are the ones that make the film what it is. During these scenes we see Hannibal give us subtle hints of possible abuse in his past which is why he connects with Clarice who also had to face some childhood trauma. The screenplay tactfully makes use of these conversation scenes to flesh out the character of Clarice by using Hannibal's interest in her as a psychiatrist. Ted Levine is also fantastic as Buffalo Bill. His performance gets undermentioned a lot, but he deserves a lot of credit for giving a truly disturbing performance.
'The Silence of the Lambs' is a near masterpiece. It is not fully realistic, but it brilliantly directed, acted and written. Beneath the disturbing exterior, the filmmaker is working on a number of levels and the introspective viewer will be able to understand how multi- layered the film genuinely is.