The Hunger Games

Lisbeth Salander and Katniss Everdeen. What do these two have in common? They’re both characters in what looks like two very successful film series; they’re both strong characters; and they’re both unique enough that people will want to see them again. I know I do. We just saw The Hunger Games at a time when most young people wouldn’t be there, 10:00 a.m. on a Monday morning. For me, it lived up to all the pre-release hoopla, depicting a self-indulgent America gone a little crazy. I remember when I first read Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery,” and I and nearly everyone else were shocked by the story’s ending, a lottery picking someone not to win anything, but to lose something, life itself. That’s the basic premise of Hunger Games: two young people from each of the twelve districts in Panem are chosen by lottery to engage in a fight to the death until only one remains, one winner and twenty-three losers. And the public, just like those in the Roman Coliseum, watch their every move, a real-life drama playing out before their eyes. Katniss and Peeta are the two chosen from District 12, the poorest of the districts, a mining area looking much like the Appalachia in Jennifer Lawrence’s Winter’s Bone. Katniss volunteered to take the place of her younger sister Primrose. The first half of the movie depicts life in the Capitol, a decadent place that prepares the twenty-four contestants for their coming trial. Katniss and Peeta are mentored by Haymitch Abernathy (Woody Harrelson) and Cinna (Lenny Kravitz) who advise them on what they must do to survive the opening of the Games. The second half is entirely about the games, about the deaths of contestants, each announced by the sounding of a cannon. The violence of the action, the killing and bloodshed, is mitigated by the use of handheld cameras, giving the scenes a sense of confusion and speed instead of graphic bloodletting. Until I read the novels, I can’t say how faithful the film was to the books. But I know the movie was strong enough that I will certainly read the novels. “Happy Hunger Games," President Snow (Donald Sutherland) says, "and may the odds be ever in your favor.”