HANNIBAL RISING

1944, Lithuania. In the midst of World War II, the Lecter family finds themselves in the middle of a shootout between German and Russian soldiers; Hannibal's parents die in the gunfight, and the child takes refuge with his younger sister Misha inside the house. After a few days, a group of Russian mercenaries in the pay of the Nazi troops break into the Lecter house and, driven by hunger, cook and eat Hannibal's little sister. Eight years pass, during which Hannibal is taken to an orphanage, but, tired of the abuse he receives, he flees to France in search of his only relative, an uncle; but there he finds only his uncle's wife, Lady Murasaki, a Japanese woman who took refuge in France after the bomb that razed Hiroshima to the ground. One day, Hannibal realizes that the mercenaries who killed Misha are still alive, so the boy begins to enact a terrible revenge. After Leatherface with "Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning," it is the turn to explore the murderous formation of another famous cannibal in cinema history: Hannibal Lecter. With "The Silence of the Lambs," "Hannibal," "Red Dragon," and the semi-apocryphal "Manhunter," we have come to know the brilliant mind of a charismatic and absolutely anomalous serial killer when compared to the classic boogeymen that cinema has given us: a human monster, endowed with great intelligence and lucid madness, cultured, a planner, and damn cunning. A character who, however, despite having three films behind him (not counting Mann's "Manhunter"), had revealed very little of his past. So, strongly desired by Dino De Laurentiis, comes the episode that should answer all those who have wondered why Hannibal prefers a diet based on human flesh; well, "Red Dragon" provides all, but really all the answers about the mysterious past of the cannibal psychiatrist, but unfortunately does so in a way that is far too banal, exploiting little original ideas that do not fit well with the saga that has been built so far. Premising that, for the writer, a saga like that of Hannibal Lecter would not have needed an explanatory prequel, capable per se of subtracting the aura of mystery and madness characteristic of the character; "Hannibal Lecter: The Origin of Evil" nevertheless presents itself as a long-drawn-out film and not even that clever. It starts from the assumption that at the origin of every evil there is war, a theme always current and open to easy moralism, an opening that nevertheless has its charm and makes one foresee a dark and crude thriller even outside the canons of the genre. But then one begins to realize that in the cauldron the author of the novel and screenwriter Thomas Harris has put a little bit of everything to boil, trying to make his character appear cool at all costs; and he does so by putting together a circus that quickly loses itself in the excess of genre clichés "formation of a hero": childhood trauma, mentor who trains the hero in combat and covers him from the suspicions of the authorities, desire for revenge, execution of the revenge. Under this optics, it makes one smile admiring the young Lecter who trains in martial arts together with Lady Murasaki, with a very "Batman Begins" air; while it leaves one bewildered to see Hannibal moving around Europe (and beyond) in search of his sister's assassins, as if he were holding in one hand the "Viper Squad Death List" and in the other a sword of Hattori Hanzo. Inappropriate choices, therefore, almost entirely attributable to Harris's work who, cornered by De Laurentiis, must have chosen to follow the easiest path, that of banality. It is then surprising to see in the role of the protagonist Gaspard Ulliel ("The Brotherhood of the Wolf"; "A Very Long Engagement"), a granite lad who, although with a cold gaze and ambiguous behavior, turns out to be mostly inexpressive and unsuitable for playing the future cannibal psychiatrist made famous by Anthony Hopkins's interpretation. Good the rest of the cast, in which Gong Li ("Memoirs of a Geisha"; "Miami Vice") stands out, in the role of Lady Murasaki, and Rhys Ifans ("Nothing Hill"; "Vanity Fair"), in the role of the wicked Grutas. Disappointing is also the gore component, from which, after Ridley Scott's "Hannibal," one expected sparks; instead, everything is reduced to a few wounds, a decapitation in long shot, and a few splashes of blood, leaving the most to off-screen. Naturally, if considered as a film in itself, "Hannibal Lecter: The Origin of Evil" simply appears as a dignified film about the desire for revenge, supported moreover by a lavish high-budget movie packaging; but if inserted within the saga of which it presents itself as a prequel, then this film does not manage to reach sufficiency. At this point, the news that if "Hannibal Lecter" will have a good box office success De Laurentiis is ready to finance two more chapters (which would be placed between this prequel and "Red Dragon"), more than a promise presents itself as a threat!