Warning: Minor spoilers for the Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes below
Full disclosure – I write this review as a huge Hunger Games fan. In fact, when I heard a film was being made of the Hunger Games prequel, my Year 8 self practically exploded with excitement. Another disclosure – I am forever and always ‘The Books were better’ – I shall try and refrain from using this exact phrase repeatedly throughout the course of this review, but truthfully, I doubt I will manage more than a sentence.
Because here’s the thing: the book was better. [Cue instantaneous groaning].
The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, if you are unaware, is the prequel written by Suzanne Collins to her smash hit series The Hunger Games, the first novel of which was published in 2008, before swiftly being made into a film series four years later. The original trilogy follows the story of Katniss Everdeen after she volunteered in her sister’s place for the Hunger Games – a brutal weeklong show in which twenty-four children fight to the death for the amusement of the ruling Capitol, led by President Coriolanus Snow – who happens to be the main character of The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. The prequel reverses seemingly everything we now know about the Hunger Games – instead of a sleekly polished ceremony mirroring the reality TV programmes of today, the games young Coriolanus Snow knows are brutal, four-hour brawls to the death, which most people in the Capitol are appalled by, not entranced. That is, until the students of the Academy in the Capitol are made to become mentors, and Coriolanus is introduced to the beguiling singer of District 12, Lucy Gray Baird.
Don’t get me wrong: I loved this film, as I do the rest of the original series. But this film fell into the trap I feared for the book: a sympathetic Snow whose heart is broken, twisting him into becoming the evil monster we know today. In the novel, Suzanne Collins’ Snow as a narrator is not quite the monster fans will know from the original series, in fact there is some sympathy for the horrors young Coriolanus has lived through, but what is clear from the narrative voice, is that this Snow is not a just a love-stricken teen: he has every element of the merciless dictator that he would grow to be inside him already. His love for Lucy Gray is not selfless nor noble, although it may be genuine, but filled with a sense of possession. He sees Lucy, of the travelling Covey family, as? the exception to the ‘savages’ of the districts. It is this separation that allows him to overcome his prejudices and eventually fall in love with her – but this is a theme that is not highlighted in the film. Without the narrative voice, despite Tom Blyth’s incredible and highly nuanced acting, Coriolanus does become more a tortured anti-hero, rather than the calculating, and ultimately selfish character we know from the books. This slight change in his depiction does dramatically alter how the audience witness his interactions with Sejanus, which makes the friendship between them more meaningful, rather than self-fulfilling for Snow, and his love for Lucy Gray makes him perhaps more empathetic in the ending, when the two split ways. And perhaps this made the novel translate more effectively for a wider audience but to me, it felt as though I was expected to warm to the tyrant I knew from the original series, rather than just grow to know him better. My other main complaint about this film is that some nuance is taken away from Capitol characters: in fact, this two-and-a-half-hour film goes at a lightning-fast pace to catch up with Suzanne Collins’ action-packed narrative, losing a lot of depth particularly in the mentors, but also for Lucy Grays’s and Coriolanus’ relationship. But whether splitting into two films would have been the right choice, I cannot fully judge for certain. Therefore, this seems a regrettable, but unavoidable fault.
That’s the complaining over, because overall I think this was a fantastic film. Seeing the Hunger Games themselves stripped of the glitz and glamour afforded to it in the original trilogy, really makes
the brutality of it hit home; these are not Games filled with sanitised savagery to amuse a bored, privileged elite, they are the Games of a society, still reeling from civil war, eager for cruel retribution. Although considerably shorter than other games we have seen, the deaths were probably more impactful in their bluntness. Even the reference to Rue’s death in the original trilogy, as the character Reaper tries to drag the bodies under the flag to provide a rustic form of burial, is more brutal, as their bodies are swarmed by the luridly coloured mutated snakes of Dr Gaul’s creation. The youth and innocence of some of the tributes is overwhelmingly present, and their deaths are almost much more crushing. The fear felt by Snow as he enters the arena is palpable, the interiorly located scene adding a terrible claustrophobia to all the scenes, and entirely different to the extravagant sets from the original. The visceral experience of being in the cinema, watching the events of the Hunger Games, is the one of the film’s triumphs over the books, elevating the scenes far beyond than merely Snow’s thoughts on the page.
The music is also another way in which the film has one up on the books. Rachel Zeger’s live performance of each and every song is nothing short of incredible, taking inspiration from 20s and 30s Virginian folk music, and providing incredible depth to the character of Lucy Gray – needed in such a jam-packed plot. Music is one of the few opportunities the audience has to sit in Lucy Gray as a character – and one of her main distinguishers from Katniss from the original trilogy. As director Francis Lawrence said: “The Hunger Games is when someone takes a hunter and makes them a fighter, the Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes is when you take a performer and make them fight.” Rachel Zegler and Tom Blyth both incredibly portray their very much opposing characters, from two different backgrounds, and emphasise both their similar pains, whilst maintaining their very different world views. Their chemistry together was incredibly natural, and despite my better judgement, I still found myself hopelessly rooting for both.
Finally, both the book and the film do a fantastic job of referencing the original series, without overdoing it. Suzanne Collins and Francis Lawrence perfectly tread the balance of creating an instalment that can exist on its own as a story and interlink and enhancing the decade-old trilogy. The easter eggs range from deliberate references to Katniss, the plant that Lucy picks, to a split-second shot of wild dog that is highly reminiscent of the mutts from the original games, and clearly show to fans that this was a film made with consideration to other instalments, even if it did capitalise of its success. Everything from the costuming to the sets was created with the later films in mind, but still had originality that made you feel like you were watching something new. Even the changing of the Capitol fashion to something that was still extravagant but far more muted than the Capitol of Katniss’s time was a perfect reflection of the change of time. Coriolanus’ Capitol is still trying to repair itself from the Dark Days; by the time of Katniss, the Capitol knows nothing but luxury.
To conclude: go watch this film… but also read the book as well.
