The Silence of the Lambs, directed by Jonathan Demme

Good evening America,
Welcome to my blog. We now have 2 weeks until the end of October, which means that after this there is only 1 more blog post in my horror series this month. I have a very special movie saved for next week, so stay tuned. This weeks movie is:

The Silence of the Lambs, directed by Jonathan Demme

The Silence of the Lambs is a psychological horror movie released in 1991 and includes the eternally infamous Hannibal Lecter. Following FBI agent Clarice Starling , Silence tells the story of a young woman who is a student at a Bureau training facility. Showing promise, she is pulled from her training to consult the incarcerated serial killer and cannibal, Hannibal Lecter, with hopes that he can provided assistance in the investigation of another serial murderer nicknamed Buffalo Bill, who starves and skins his victims.

Silence won a significant amount of awards following its release, not just because 1991 was a relatively uneventful year, but because of the stunning performances put on by the cast. In my opinion this movie has some of the best performances of all time; namely the legendary show put on by Anthony Hopkins, who played Hannibal Lecter. Hopkins' acting was truly stunning. His chilling, cruel and almost fatherly figure makes to be one of the most rememberable quazi-villian of all time.

I say quazi-villian because although Hannibal is a true monster, he aids our protagonist in her investigation and ultimately leads to the capture and death of Buffalo Bill. In the relationship he builds with Clarice, he even begins to look out after her even when it doesn't directly benefit himself. In this way Hannibal becomes Clarice's guardian angle, which is extremely ironic with Hannibal being who he is.

This irony plays into a main theme of the movie: split personalities. Clarice is a female hero, a rarity in modern movies with a mood such as this. Even more so, she works in a male dominated environment, and constantly struggles to prove herself as macho as her male counterparts. On top of that, she is still trying to forget the painful memories of her childhood that she reveals to Hannibal. These things together give Clarice a kind of identity problem of her own: a female needing to be masculine, an adult trying to leave behind her childhood. This is one of the reasons I think that Clarice and Hannibal bond in the way that they do, is because they're both dealing with their inner demons, just in hugely different ways.

Then, of course, there's Buffalo Bill. His real name is Jame Gumb, he's a transvestite, and he kills people. He is obsessed with women, so much to the point that he has a vagina and kidnaps women, starves them for three days, and the skins them in order to make a suit of human skin. Basically your typical dude. His split personalities are hopefully self explanatory, and similar to Clarice, they are related to gender.

This movie is one of my all time favorites, and I happily give it a 9.5 on the SMS, for it deserves every point it can get. This is a great movie and, while creepy, is recommended to all. This has been a movie review by Severin, the semi-informed movie critic. Stay safe America, and keep watching movies.