the devil is in the details.
Can we talk about Hannibal, please?
I've stayed away from this show so far, because I know something that will fuck me up when I see it and Hannibal definitely does that. No more than one ep a day, or I'll go kooky. And I'm not even kidding, I get lost in stuff like this.
Serial killers. I don't like how we make a hype out of them, how we glorify the sick and murderous, but. Do as I say, not as I do. I do so love the wickedly dark things. So I'm apparently watching Hannibal now.
First observations include:
The layers. Good god, that show has layers. At first sight, it's all cheap symbolism and straight forward lines. (Keep in mind, one ep a day, I've only seen the pilot.)
The lighting, for one. Will gets blues, reds, open, bright places. Hannibal get's a dark office. When he eats, he sits more or less in complete darkness. During the breakfast scene, they are literally separated by a strip of light across the table. In the very last shot, they sit on either side of the hospital bed, Hannibal in shadow, Will in light. Perfect use of lighting, but superficial. Obvious.
And the colours. Like I said, Will gets colourful backdrops. Hannibal doesn't. Will consistently wears shades of grey. Grey character? Torn between sides? That's what you can catch from the first ten minutes of a show. Here's the good guy, bright and well lit, and here's the bad guy, badly lit.
That's the surface. Beyond that, it gets interesting. Beyond that, the subversion starts. Jack wears the most black of anyone. Hannibal wears white. Whoops, turned that around.
And then there's interaction.
Will is terrified of Jack and Jack knows it. He uses it. Within thirty seconds of meeting Will, he rights his glasses, touches his hands. Touches someone who just literally said that he's on the spectrum. That's on purpose and it's meant to throw Will off, make him agree to help Jack.
In the bathroom scene, Jack emotionally strongarms Will into helping. He demonstrates power and extreme rage toward a perfectly innocent bystander and then turns on Will and tells him what to do. And Will keeps shrinking against the sink, not moving, not even thinking of protesting, which is absolutely a learned reaction, by the way, but I'll save that for later.
Jack promises Will will have the crime scene to himself and bam, someone's there, scaring him, making him off balance again. Jack likes Will off balance, me thinks.
Jack plays with Will like a cat with a mouse.
And Hannibal does the opposite. Hannibal is honest in a way Jack absolutely isn't. He proposes dealing with the situation like adults. He answers Will's questions. He doesn't even pretend to be shocked or horrified at what happens at the Hobbs' house. Sure, he doesn't exactly walk up and introduce himself as Hannibal the Cannibal, but then, Will doesn't ask for that, does he?
So the dichotomy is turned upside down. First level symbolism, Will and Hannibal are separated by sides. Second level, Jack and Hannibal are portrayed the opposite way of what you'd expect. Jack, the mentor, gets the bad guy role and Hannibal, the cannibal, gets the supportive friend role.
So there's that.
And then we have the next level, which is entirely inside Will's head, splitting him into killer!Will and saviour!Will, who overlap the second there's blood on the floor.
Has anyone made the connection between Will's perfect 'empathy' and his interaction with Hannibal? I mean, if the man reads love in a gored and mounted girl, if he's that intuitive, then Hannibal should blow out the fuse on all his alarm bells. Hannibal is literally the most terrifying monster Will will ever meet and Will should notice that. He has to at least know that there is something off. Because that's his 'gift'.
With that in mind, his interactions with Hannibal get even more exquisite.
And the way Hannibal flirts through giving Will a dead girl as a gift, and how he takes over saving Hobbs' daughter and he doesn't even look at her while she bleeds out, but totally focuses on Will, who's shaking and panting and blurring all around the edges because blood makes him a bit kooky.
They're so intimate and work together seamlessly after knowing each other for a day. Hannibal takes direction and then runs with it and they work parallel to each other. Which, knowing how book canon ends for them, is so much more twisted.
Eugh.
That. Show.
Will definitely fuck me up.
I think I'm done now.
I've stayed away from this show so far, because I know something that will fuck me up when I see it and Hannibal definitely does that. No more than one ep a day, or I'll go kooky. And I'm not even kidding, I get lost in stuff like this.
Serial killers. I don't like how we make a hype out of them, how we glorify the sick and murderous, but. Do as I say, not as I do. I do so love the wickedly dark things. So I'm apparently watching Hannibal now.
First observations include:
The layers. Good god, that show has layers. At first sight, it's all cheap symbolism and straight forward lines. (Keep in mind, one ep a day, I've only seen the pilot.)
The lighting, for one. Will gets blues, reds, open, bright places. Hannibal get's a dark office. When he eats, he sits more or less in complete darkness. During the breakfast scene, they are literally separated by a strip of light across the table. In the very last shot, they sit on either side of the hospital bed, Hannibal in shadow, Will in light. Perfect use of lighting, but superficial. Obvious.
And the colours. Like I said, Will gets colourful backdrops. Hannibal doesn't. Will consistently wears shades of grey. Grey character? Torn between sides? That's what you can catch from the first ten minutes of a show. Here's the good guy, bright and well lit, and here's the bad guy, badly lit.
That's the surface. Beyond that, it gets interesting. Beyond that, the subversion starts. Jack wears the most black of anyone. Hannibal wears white. Whoops, turned that around.
And then there's interaction.
Will is terrified of Jack and Jack knows it. He uses it. Within thirty seconds of meeting Will, he rights his glasses, touches his hands. Touches someone who just literally said that he's on the spectrum. That's on purpose and it's meant to throw Will off, make him agree to help Jack.
In the bathroom scene, Jack emotionally strongarms Will into helping. He demonstrates power and extreme rage toward a perfectly innocent bystander and then turns on Will and tells him what to do. And Will keeps shrinking against the sink, not moving, not even thinking of protesting, which is absolutely a learned reaction, by the way, but I'll save that for later.
Jack promises Will will have the crime scene to himself and bam, someone's there, scaring him, making him off balance again. Jack likes Will off balance, me thinks.
Jack plays with Will like a cat with a mouse.
And Hannibal does the opposite. Hannibal is honest in a way Jack absolutely isn't. He proposes dealing with the situation like adults. He answers Will's questions. He doesn't even pretend to be shocked or horrified at what happens at the Hobbs' house. Sure, he doesn't exactly walk up and introduce himself as Hannibal the Cannibal, but then, Will doesn't ask for that, does he?
So the dichotomy is turned upside down. First level symbolism, Will and Hannibal are separated by sides. Second level, Jack and Hannibal are portrayed the opposite way of what you'd expect. Jack, the mentor, gets the bad guy role and Hannibal, the cannibal, gets the supportive friend role.
So there's that.
And then we have the next level, which is entirely inside Will's head, splitting him into killer!Will and saviour!Will, who overlap the second there's blood on the floor.
Has anyone made the connection between Will's perfect 'empathy' and his interaction with Hannibal? I mean, if the man reads love in a gored and mounted girl, if he's that intuitive, then Hannibal should blow out the fuse on all his alarm bells. Hannibal is literally the most terrifying monster Will will ever meet and Will should notice that. He has to at least know that there is something off. Because that's his 'gift'.
With that in mind, his interactions with Hannibal get even more exquisite.
And the way Hannibal flirts through giving Will a dead girl as a gift, and how he takes over saving Hobbs' daughter and he doesn't even look at her while she bleeds out, but totally focuses on Will, who's shaking and panting and blurring all around the edges because blood makes him a bit kooky.
They're so intimate and work together seamlessly after knowing each other for a day. Hannibal takes direction and then runs with it and they work parallel to each other. Which, knowing how book canon ends for them, is so much more twisted.
Eugh.
That. Show.
Will definitely fuck me up.
I think I'm done now.