Mockingjay- Mocking the Audience. Review on The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1

You are not going to like this! From all Hunger Games fans, I seek pardon. Forgive me, for I shall speak blasphemy, and the truth.

The final part of the Hunger Games Trilogy has Katniss agreeing to become the face of the ‘prop’ or the propaganda of the rebels, in return for the rescue and pardon of her love interest, former Tribute Peeta. Her District 12 has fallen, so she goes to District 13, which is the underground hub of the rebellion against the Capitol, where Dr. Snow rules. Dr Snow has imprisoned Peeta and is using him as propaganda to persuade the rebels to lay down arms since Katniss is a misguided soul who will lead the rebels to destruction.

Since this is a propaganda war between the rebels and the Capitol, expect nothing else. Much of the movie has the prop team holding cameras goading a hesitant Katniss to utter from script. There are endless monologues and dialogues that meander from one TV screen to another as the rivals seek to outdo each other in psychological warfare. Lights flicker, TV screens come and go, characters, glued to their monitors, gasp, wince or pucker up as required, while the audience squirms, shifts and crunches popcorn and sucks on cheap ice-dollies waiting for something worthwhile to happen.

Nothing happens! Nothing happens for the first half. If you’d skipped the part before intermission you’d have missed nothing much. I slept till the cola break and when I woke up I asked Nidhi, ‘what happened’. She said, ‘nothing’.

So I went off to sleep some more and woke up an hour later, refreshed, rubbing my eyes, stretching and hungry for more pop and fizz. ‘What happened now’, I repeated. ‘Nothing’, she echoed. Another half an hour later when the credits were scrolling I asked myself, ‘what happened’. ‘Nothing’, pat came the reply.

The Hunger Games franchise has taken the audience worldwide for granted. Before you step into the theater, be warned, you are expected to have studied and watched the previous series. And they called this Part 1. Pray, why not bung in the other part and make it a whole, rather than leave it out and make it a hole?

I wondered about the word Mockingjay- it’s not there in the dictionary and as per Dr Snow, it’s not meant to exist either. It’s a frightful mistake of evolution. By taking on the nickname of Mockingjay Katniss becomes the symbol of something that resolutely thrives, and rebels despite all odds. You see, in the Hunger Games universe, the Capitol Jabberjays mated with the Mockingbirds. The resultant mutant species, Mockingjay could mimic any human tune accurately but fell silent upon hearing a human voice that it respects. Whenever Katniss sings the Mockingjays symbolically fall silent, letting her voice fill the air and echo through the mountains and river valleys.

Now why the mockingbird? When Charles Darwin, the naturalist, visited the Galapagos Islands he discovered that Mockingbirds differed from island to island. It shattered the theory of stability of species. Instead of creating a new miracle everytime a new species was required, god instead simply let them mutate. That is how fish, reptiles and birds, in that order, evolved into mammals and man. So Mockingbirds gave Darwin the clue to his theory on Natural Selection and Evolution Of Species. So I guess the Mockingjay symbolizes evolution, transmutation, and transformation of the districts from being the underdogs to the superior race that some day would occupy the Capitol perhaps?

The author has based the Hunger Games on the ancient tradition of the Roman gladiators. The name Panem, given to the districts of Panem that are rebelling and seeking to unify against the capitol is itself symbolic- it means bread and circus- the old strategy of Roman state to keep the masses appeased through food and entertainment- cruel if need be. The mayor of District 12 gave the Mockingjay pin as a present to Katniss before the games began. Given the capitol’s abhorrence of the bird it becomes a symbol for the rebels to look up to.

In Greek mythology, Theseus, the son of King of Athens, volunteered to become a part of the group of victims that was as per tradition served up as Athenian sacrifice to Crete, as recompense for the murder of their king’s son. Theseus enters the Minotaur’s labyrinth and kills the Minotaur, thus ending the practice of sacrifice once and for all. Something similar happens in the Hunger Games trilogy- don’t you think?

Give this movie a wide miss, and go for Ungli or any brain-dead Bollywood entertainment instead.