“The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes” with Rachel Zegler and Tom Blythe – what to expect from Francis Lawrence’s film

Bread and circuses. We would assume that this maxim, born in Ancient Rome, has long lost its relevance. However, to this day human civilization – or rather those who hold power within it – continues to use this means to keep the masses in subjection.

This is the basis of “The Hunger Games” – the dystopian world of Susan Collins, in which young people from the poor and starving districts of the Panem empire (it is no coincidence that the name comes from the Latin panem – “bread”) compete to the death until there is only one left. one. Reminds me of gladiator fights, doesn’t it?

The whole idea was wonderfully fleshed out in both the three original books and the four Francis Lawrence films starring Jennifer Lawrence (“The Hunger Games,” “Ignite,” “Mockingjay 1” and “Mockingjay 2”). . There we also saw the cruel president of Panem, Coriolan Snow, played by Donald Sutherland.

“Ballad of Songbirds and Serpents” shows us how Coriolanus transforms from an innocent boy into a man ready to cross any moral line and even sacrifice his closest people for the sole purpose of climbing the ladder of power.

The new film by Lawrence (the director, not the actress) comes out eight years after the last of the original series – a time in which violence and wars have once again come to the agenda of the world, the gap between rich and poor has widened and the moral foundations of humanity they look more and more like a flimsy paper tower rather than bulwarks.

Against this background, the story of how far misery and suffering could lower the human spirit is quite apt. As well as how the tyrants appear. Because every one of the brutal leaders of today’s totalitarian regimes – we don’t need to name names – was once a child.

Source: Forum Film Bulgaria

How and when the first seeds of cruelty, unscrupulousness and the ambition to get one’s way at any cost germinate in the innocent soul is a complex question. A question that The Hunger Games: A Ballad of Songbirds and Serpents partially tries to answer.

Tom Blythe stars as the young Coriolan Snow. And the legacy of playing Donald Sutherland has clearly done him good – the 28-year-old Birmingham-born actor not only put himself through a brutal diet and workout routine to get Snow’s physique, but also spent sleepless nights searching for the best the right approach to convey his character’s inner conflicts.

Source: Forum Film Bulgaria

He succeeded. As did Rachel Zegler, who was born to play Lucy Gray Beard, apologies for the cliché. At once cocky and fragile, direct and terribly scared, Lucy must face her worst enemy – the one who looks like a friend.

Amidst all these important issues, The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Serpents, alas, has a few weak links. The love story – especially in its actual part, is marked enough to guess what and how it happened. We would have liked a little more time spent on exactly when things “break” in Coriolanus’ soul.

Source: Forum Film Bulgaria

Some critics find the overuse of music and songs in the story – we don’t mind. We consider the style and manner in which they appear in the plot quite appropriate. And it’s a pleasant surprise to learn that Lucy Gray’s emotional performances are delivered by Rachel Zegler herself.

As for the duration – yes, Francis Lawrence’s film is two and a half hours long. And these are a much more justified two and a half hours than the meaningless three and a half hours of Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon.

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But to end on a positive note, like the film itself: the ideas in it are important not because they are new. On the contrary, they are our well-known afflictions of humanity, such as tyranny, poverty, the triumph of violence, and the bottom to which a human being is willing to sink when faced with the choice of his own survival.

The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Serpents is in theaters November 17