From Dr. Hannibal Lecter, With Fear

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Non-Fiction

"From Dr. Hannibal Lecter, With Fear"
non-fiction by Mihir Apte

"Good Evening, Clarice...."

Almost as synonymous as "Alimentary, my dear Watson", but chilling and sending a rush of fear through the spine. But now, after 10 years, it's "Good Evening, special agent Graham....that's the same atrocious aftershave that you were wearing in the courtroom."
Cold and riveting.

When I first saw "The Silence Of The Lambs", I found it to be a frightful and moving picture about the relationship between an FBI agent and a cannibal psychiatrist. They help each other to solve the murder mysteries but each of them in the end gets entangled themselves in exploring the boundaries of the human mind. Anthony Hopkins plays the controversial Dr. Hannibal Lecter for the first time and gets the Oscar for Best Actor too.

Years later, when "Hannibal", the sequel was released, the spine-chilling experience was again revisited, with more insight about the person who is Dr. Hannibal Lecter. It doesn't go much in detail, though and the movie ends in an unexpected ending. And now, with "Red Dragon", the first book in the series which is also the prequel to the earlier movies, we meet Lecter for the first time again, during his days as a practicing psychiatrist, with the taste in the 'exotic'.

With the Lecter trilogy, writer Thomas Harris has created characters and environments which can only be called as terrifying. The movies are cold blooded, but sometimes ironic and most often, funny too. I guess you just have to develop the 'taste'. Mind you, even though Hannibal Lecter is the common character in all the movies, he is not the principal one. In "Silence of the Lambs", his part was only for 35 minutes. Same for the "Red Dragon". And that's something amazing. The main characters are the serial killers whom the law is so desperately seeking. They, along with their logic for the murders they do, are the crux of the series. Hannibal is a mere tool with which the agents get to catch them. These killers are supposedly 'his former patients' who just get carried away. Hannibal neither appreciates nor condemns the killings, but he merely gives the agents what they ask for, with a little something for himself in return.

In a recent interview, Sir Anthony Hopkins was asked if there was a hidden monster inside him too, which makes him like the character of Hannibal Lecter. Smiling devilishly he replied :
" I don't think so . However, it is perfectly normal for anyone to be attracted to him. He is something we all cannot be, and yet he is a perfect gentleman. I have loved to be with him for so long. "

The Hannibal trilogy is a very intelligent and thought provoking series which touches our inner fears. Our fears of unacceptability, out of the ordinary and the unknown. The series also draws the horrible picture of modern urban America and the social bindings which each character is fighting. It is them that drives each character ahead in some way or the other towards their final goals. They get what they want in the end, all of them, but they lose a big part of their conscience in the event. For Clarice Starling, it's to save an innocent life. For Agent Graham it's to understand what the killer is made up of. And for Lecter it's to be freed. They all get their share. But they change forever too.

These movies will be remembered for great storytelling and introspection of human behaviour. As Lecter puts it :

"Think to yourself that everyday is your last; the hour to which you do not look forward will come as a welcome surprise."

MIHIR APTE, male, age 25, India. Contact : mihirapte@yahoo.com
Copyright 2003 Mihir Apte
Reviews and comments requested.
Posted 01/12/2003