So I know I don't usually use this blog to post film or book reviews. But I'm going to start, right now, predominantly because I just saw the film adaptation of the Hunger Games. And it was SO. GOOD.
So I loved this book. Basically, of the new books I've read this year so far, two have immediately leapt into my List of Favourite Books of All Time: The Fault in our Stars (which I've already bored everyone by raving about) and the Hunger Games Trilogy. HG has actually been out since 2008, but whatever. I take pride in not reading books until after everyone else already has done. I am a reverse hipster.
So obviously, when someone makes a film based on a book you love, there is HUGE EXCITEMENT, and there is also a sense of dread. You really want to see the fictional world you adore made into real actors and sets and things, but you also really don't want them to get it wrong. And I've had my fair share of disappointments with adaptations of books, Eragon and Harry Potter Six being the biggest examples. So I knew what the risk was.
But they got the Hunger Games film so, so right. Better than I ever dared to hope to dare to expect.
So I guess I should outline the plot, because that's what you're supposed to do, but I'm pretty sure everyone already knows it. Suffice to say, there's a future distopian type place called Panem, consisting of one Capitol and twelve Districts. Every year, two children from every District are reaped into competing in a reality show in which they have to fight to the death, basically because the people who rule Panem are dicks. This girl called Primrose Everdeen, who is the most sweet and innocent girl to ever exist in human history, gets reaped, and her kickass older sister, Katniss, volunteers in her place.
The reason the film is so good is because it mirrors exactly the spirit of the book: the twisted morality of the Paneminians, the shock of watching twelve-to-eighteen-year-olds reduced to killing machines, and the brutal empathy you cannot help but experience as you watch the Games occur through Katniss's eyes.
The film makers did the same thing which Suzanne Collins does, but perhaps even better: they make every single contestant in the Games into a human being. Every single death in the arena kills you, even though you're supposed to root for Katniss's victory, and even though many of the contestants are bastards. You truly understand that every one of the tributes is a human, and a child, and a victim of the same cruel system that has torn Katniss from everything she knows.
The film actually adds bits which are really effective, and which Collins would not have been able to do on paper. Like the scenes outside the arena during the games, with the Game Masters and Snow and Haymitch. I loved them. I loved how much they added to the feeling of outrage you regarding the nature of the games, and how they make it ever more clear how much control the Capitol has over these kids' lives.
I want to talk about the film in more depth than the desire to not spoil it for people will let me, so I'm going to do a second post in which I freely spoil everything. Please don't read it if you have neither read not seen the Hunger Games, because experiencing them without being spoiled is not an experience you want to miss.
This film/book will change the way you see and think about pretty much everything. It's a masterpiece, and all humans must experience it in one or preferably both of it's forms. Katniss' story is one of the most heart-wrenching and powerful works of fiction of all time.
So I loved this book. Basically, of the new books I've read this year so far, two have immediately leapt into my List of Favourite Books of All Time: The Fault in our Stars (which I've already bored everyone by raving about) and the Hunger Games Trilogy. HG has actually been out since 2008, but whatever. I take pride in not reading books until after everyone else already has done. I am a reverse hipster.
So obviously, when someone makes a film based on a book you love, there is HUGE EXCITEMENT, and there is also a sense of dread. You really want to see the fictional world you adore made into real actors and sets and things, but you also really don't want them to get it wrong. And I've had my fair share of disappointments with adaptations of books, Eragon and Harry Potter Six being the biggest examples. So I knew what the risk was.
But they got the Hunger Games film so, so right. Better than I ever dared to hope to dare to expect.
So I guess I should outline the plot, because that's what you're supposed to do, but I'm pretty sure everyone already knows it. Suffice to say, there's a future distopian type place called Panem, consisting of one Capitol and twelve Districts. Every year, two children from every District are reaped into competing in a reality show in which they have to fight to the death, basically because the people who rule Panem are dicks. This girl called Primrose Everdeen, who is the most sweet and innocent girl to ever exist in human history, gets reaped, and her kickass older sister, Katniss, volunteers in her place.
The reason the film is so good is because it mirrors exactly the spirit of the book: the twisted morality of the Paneminians, the shock of watching twelve-to-eighteen-year-olds reduced to killing machines, and the brutal empathy you cannot help but experience as you watch the Games occur through Katniss's eyes.
The film makers did the same thing which Suzanne Collins does, but perhaps even better: they make every single contestant in the Games into a human being. Every single death in the arena kills you, even though you're supposed to root for Katniss's victory, and even though many of the contestants are bastards. You truly understand that every one of the tributes is a human, and a child, and a victim of the same cruel system that has torn Katniss from everything she knows.
The film actually adds bits which are really effective, and which Collins would not have been able to do on paper. Like the scenes outside the arena during the games, with the Game Masters and Snow and Haymitch. I loved them. I loved how much they added to the feeling of outrage you regarding the nature of the games, and how they make it ever more clear how much control the Capitol has over these kids' lives.
I want to talk about the film in more depth than the desire to not spoil it for people will let me, so I'm going to do a second post in which I freely spoil everything. Please don't read it if you have neither read not seen the Hunger Games, because experiencing them without being spoiled is not an experience you want to miss.
This film/book will change the way you see and think about pretty much everything. It's a masterpiece, and all humans must experience it in one or preferably both of it's forms. Katniss' story is one of the most heart-wrenching and powerful works of fiction of all time.
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