Hannibal Lecter's Harrowing of Hell Hannibal the Cannibal redeems movie religion with refried salvation. Toward the end of Hannibal , the new sequel to The Silence of the Lambs , Sir Anthony Hopkins, in the title role, is wheeled on an upright gurney into the pit of a sunken livestock pen. He is about to be eaten by a pig. At first glance, this scene seems little more than another instance of American cinema's facile use of religious allusions and imagery. Don't get me wrong.
Film is a perfectly appropriate medium for discussing religious ideas.
When new scriptures enter the canons of the coming millennium, they most certainly will be made more of images than of text. Given the lightweight religiosity that rules the spiritual marketplace these days, all this God-flavored fluff comes as no surprise. And now we have the crucifixion of Hannibal Lecter. Yes, with fear and trembling I report that a movie in which we see brains eaten, skullcaps removed, and various Italians stabbed, hanged, and disemboweled does offer something other than theological costume jewelry. Not diamonds perhaps, but certainly a few pearls.