The Silence of the Lambs is the film adaptation of Thomas Harris' novel of the same name. It was the first time that one of his books was adapted to film. Years before, Red Dragon was also, but under the title of Manhunter, with Brian Cox playing Doctor Hannibal Lecktor. However, that primitive version was forgotten, and The Silence of the Lambs was consecrated as a mythical film.

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Year: 1991 Category: Horror, Thriller. Director: Jonathan Demme Cast: Jodie Foster, Anthony Hopkins, Scott Glenn, Ted Levine, Anthony Heald.

Plot

The FBI is looking for the serial killer named Buffalo Bill, all the victims killed by this killer are teenage girls, but he only kills them after thoroughly preparing them and tearing their skin. In order to catch him they contact Clarice Starling, a brilliant university graduate, expert in psychopathic behavior, who aspires to be part of the FBI. Following the instructions of his boss, Jack Crawford, and with the mission of trying to obtain information about the behavior of Buffalo Bill, Clarice visits the high security prison where the government keeps Hanibal Lecter, a former psychoanalyst and murderer, endowed with an intelligence very high.

Opinion

At the time of its premiere, this film showed in an effective and novel way that the serial killers had been dissected, studied and classified, establishing parameters of their behavior within certain scientific patterns. In a way, society had become a sick body, which was producing more assiduously serial killers as if they were cancerous tumors. That is to say, the serial killers multiplied year after year due to a series of cultural, environmental, family and social factors that were evolving in a distorted way, the psychopaths were no longer isolated cases. It was then, when the "Lecter trilogy" began, but did not start, but from the second chapter, narrating a film that dispensed with any type of prequel or previous episode to be consistent with what the viewer would see.

So in the first twenty minutes, the film unfolds the main themes in front of the viewer, making clear the suspense, the hunt for the psychopath, the problematic of being a woman in a world of men and the duality between beast and man represented by Hannibal Lecter . The rest unfolds on its own, as if the film were a smoothly adjusted mechanism, with all its parts well greased and polished, which allowed the action to take place until its tense conclusion. A conclusion that, in addition, brought us closer to the psychopathic monster who acted as an antagonist and who responded to the nickname of Buffallo Bill, for his morbid tendency to skin his victims. It is not a common psychopath, nor a serial killer without motives. It was a well-defined monster, with phobias and very specific addictions, which made the viewer feel repulsion for him.

Foster endows his character with a superlative mixture of fragility and determination. And Hopkins plays one of the most famous psychopaths in history, the performer has only eight scenes, but the extreme elegance with which he speaks and the gestures that the character adopts puts the audience from the first moment in a brilliant diatribe: in which we know that he is a cruel murderer, and that he is capable of eating whoever is a problem for him, but at the same time a fascination that supposes the cold and calculating presence of an amazing interpretative creation.

The film seems excellent to me, and although I can understand that at present it has lost a little its effect on the spectator, this is because since this film was released it managed to change its genre forever, representing a great influence for all the films later. So those novel things that had this movie at that time, it has become something moderately habitual, however, very few or none of the future works reach the film level of this.

Trailer

Score

10/10

The Silence of the Lambs is the first horror film to win the Oscar for Best Picture, and has the honor of being one of the only three films that throughout history have managed to transform the five main nominations (Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Adapted Screenplay) in victories. Which is why I must give you the highest score, and recommend it to anyone who has not seen it yet.