A Modern Horror Masterpiece ...

Rating: 10/10 (14 August 2011)

If there ever was a movie genre that needed constant renovations in order to maintain its appeal, it's certainly Horror, and at this level, "The Silence of the Lambs" didn't just reinvent but transcended it.
Fear is based on a simple principle : the 'boo' effect. The less we expect something to happen, the most it scares us. "Psycho", by featuring a totally demented boy-next-door villain, terrified an audience used to associate horror with vampires and exotic monsters. "The Exorcist" pushed the level of realism to a magnificent artistry while "Jaws" suggested a mysterious presence, keeping it even more frightening, a device sublimated by the movies "Alien" and "The Shining". All these movies shared an iconic significance in the evolution of Thriller and more specifically Horror films and it seemed like nothing could surprise a mature audience anymore
This situation worsened with the consecration of slasher films and their overused cheap-plotted formulas making uncertain recipes out of classic ingredients, notably those introduced by the previous masterpieces : hemoglobin overdose, gruesome over-the-top special effects and various experimentations that pushed the genre down to Z-movies in the worst case, and in the best, B-movies with a cult status. So, a masterpiece built out of a new and fresh material was begging to be made. And cinematic Gods attributed this mission to Jonathan Demme with the classic "Silence of the Lambs", the first Horror film to win the Oscar for Best Picture. Finally.
"The Silence of the Lambs" is one of the greatest cinematic achievements of cinema's history. Every single element contributes to create a disturbing and unique atmosphere, and I use very carefully the word 'unique'. I highly doubt anyone was reminded of a villain with the same caliber as Dr. Hannibal -with the chilling rhyming nickname- Lecter, masterfully personified by Anthony Hopkins. I doubt anyone remembers a similar movie where a young, vulnerable and non-Ellen-Ripley looking girl doesn't play the victim, nor the hero's love interest, but the actual heroine. Clarice Starling, as a FBI trainee is played by Jodie Foster, in a performance subtly combining feminine vulnerability and heroic tenacity. And no one would have expected the film to have a binary structure with a classic serial-killer's investigation in one hand, and a subplot involving one of the greatest movie villains of all-time and his interaction with the heroine, on the other.
The script is tightly constructed, patiently leading us to assemble each piece of the puzzle until the series of interactions between Clarice and Hannibal approaches a disturbing truth. The relationship between the two leads is even more fascinating because it deepens their personalities and allows us to get more and more in their background : the wounds in Clarice's past, the mystery around Hannibal Lecter, and the roots of evil that inspired the serial killers' acts. And this is where the freshness of the film relies on : its capability to put everything into perspective and invite our perceptions to go beyond the simple 'good vs. evil' dichotomy. The villain are no sharks, no monsters, no possessing demons, they are everyday men, like some Norman Bates with an extra level of savagery and pervert creativity and we try to understand to better fight them, under the pervert irony that the investigation requires a psychopathic mind to arrest another one.
Talking about psychopath, the way Hannibal is introduced after the first minutes is impressive and gloomy enough to make us expect the worst and when we finally see him, standing, well-dressed, clean cut, the impact is immediate. Demme's meticulous direction introduces Clarice in a very clever way too, she's basically a girl enduring a lot of stress and hardship while trying to overcome a physically handicapping feminine condition in a world of men. There's one scene where she enters an elevator, surrounded by a group of men whose big sizes emphasize her tininess. Another moment shows her trying to handle a group of officers standing in a room, assessing a minimum of authority. Clarice Starling is endearing and engaging as the heroine driven by a desire of justice and accomplishment, and the trust or fondness developed by both the Agent in Charge, Crawford, played by Scott Glenn, and maybe Hannibal Lecter, himself. After all, the many close-ups on his face during his interrogations and the suavity of his voice suggest a disturbing feel of intimacy between him and Clarice. And as the investigations progresses, the extraordinary portrayal of the real villain of the film, by an underrated Ted Levine, keeps us hooked until the final confrontation.
If you noticed, I mentioned every element that generally makes a great movie, writing, acting, directing, the movie was indeed the third, and last to date, to win the five major Academy Awards, after "It Happened One Night" and "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest". It had this classic feeling from the day it was released because it combined so many new elements that defined the notion of psychological thriller, before it became a trend. And it's no surprise that the film topped many list from the American Film Institute, #5 of AFI's 100 Thrills, #6 heroine, and good ol' Hannibal as number one movie villain, and he wasn't even the main antagonist in the film, which says as much as his winning the Oscar for less than 20 minutes on-screen, to find a character with the same cinematic aura, I guess we would go back to Vito Corleone.
"The Silence of the Lambs" reinvented the horror genre as the kind of movie that would have made Alfred Hitchcock proud : a scary villain, a sympathetic hero, a script respecting our intelligence, top-notch direction and editing, and for one thing, it didn't even need a twist ending