In Which I Use the Library as Netflix pt 4: Some Things Take Time

I got a job this week (yay!), which might effect my schedule for these going forwards. We'll see. 

Last week's trip to the library was a bit earlier and shorter, but my brother came home from college to celebrate our Mom's birthday, so we watched the movie together. 

At this point it shouldn't be a surprise that it wasn't Schindler's List.

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I'm not really planning on saying much about the film itself, but in case I do, This movie is from 1991 you had plenty of time

So, first of all: surprising lack of cannibalism in this movie. Sweeny Todd had more cannibalism in it. I think I may only be surprised because I had expected the movie to be more about Hannibal than it ended up being, but honestly that's on me for not really knowing much about the film going in. 

Sometimes I don't have time on Fridays to watch the movies I borrow, which gives me less time to write this, but I did watch The Silence of the Lambs with my brother Friday night. What stopped me this time, was the thought that I didn't really get it. I felt, after watching it, that there was some aspect of the story I was missing, or maybe too stupid to understand. I liked the movie, it just confused me. So, last night, I gave up on trying to turn the film over in my head and just popped the disk back in my computer to see if giving it a second go would fix the issue. 

And what do ya know, it did! I understand The Silence of the Lambs now. I just needed more time with it. 

And while I could spend some time writing here about gender and poverty and possessiveness, I don't really think anything I could say about the film would be necessarily as interesting as the circumstances in which I engaged with it this past week. Anything I could have said about the former has been said before by smarter people with more experience in film criticism. No, I'd rather talk about the act of re-watching films and watching them with others.

My brother rarely, if ever, re-watches films. But I do it all the time. I keep my copy of Kamikaze Girls on my nightstand, mostly for decorative purposes but also because it's one of the films I love re-watching. 

1000% would recommend Kamikaze Girls

In that case, the rewatch isn't because I didn't get it. It's because I just love the film so much. It's comforting. The same is the case with The Batman (2022) for me (although that's mainly because I just really like Batman). But even in these cases, there were things I didn't notice on a first watch that I know about now because I've seen it again. 

It's almost embarrassing how long it took me to realize this guy is dressed like the drops mascot

Which is the same case here for The Silence of the Lambs. Whatever I was missing, I managed to get a quarter of the way through. I didn't really need the full 118 minutes. But I watched the whole film again, and I'm glad I did. I appreciate the film a bit more for it, I think, due to the smaller details I dismissed before (such as Hannibal telling the senator he "loves [her] suit." Amazing touch).

Additionally, I'm really glad I watched this with my brother. Aside from the fact that I just like hanging out with my brother, I feel that watching movies with people gives you new perspectives on the film that you wouldn't otherwise have. While watching the film, my brother pointed out that the ballerina on the first victim's jewelry box is the same as the one on the jewelry box I've had since we were kids. Who else could have noticed that?

I wonder if it plays the same song too ૮ ˶ᵔ ᵕ ᵔ˶ ა

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In conclusion, The Silence of the Lambs gets a 4/10 from me. Not only were there no lambs, but also quite a bit of talking. I give it 3 extra points for the fact that there was some silence and Hannibal did draw a lamb. So that makes it kinda better.

Also, they keep calling him Dr. Lecter in the movie but... there's no way that man is still a doctor, right? They have to have taken away his license.

And I might end up having to watch that TV show just to find out what Hannibal's deal is. They keep mentioning that he eats people but never tell me why or show me.