“My name is Katniss Everdeen. I survived the Hunger Games. I was rescued by District 13. Peeta was left behind.”
A shaking Katniss is curled up in a ball, muttering these words to herself in what seems to be a dark back room in the opening scene of “Mockingjay: Part 1.” Doctors call her name, she begs for five more minutes. They enter her hideaway, she convulses and screams as they forcibly drag her back to bed and sedate her.
This one scene sets the tone for the whole film: Katniss Everdeen, “the Mockingjay,” is an uncontrollable force of fire and will, and District 13 must find the proper way to tame her and use her or else risk the collapse of their revolution.
Watching “Mockingjay,” even though it’s only Part 1, one wonders “What’s the point?” The film is an exposé on the damaging effects of oppression, hatred, and violence, and the hero is so broken she can barely pull herself together to fight for what’s right. What’s worse is the film offers no answers as to how Katniss might find hope — the only thing that keeps her going is her hatred for Snow and desperation to save Peeta.
It’s hard to call Katniss’s obsession with saving Peeta “love” in the romantic sense, since up until this point in the series she has denied any feelings for Peeta and is still torn between him and Gale. Rather, Katniss feels a sense of obligation to save Peeta because of his own unwavering devotion to her.
“All I wanted was to keep Peeta alive,” she says.
Katniss’s relationship with Peeta could be described as “sacrificial love,” but it is sacrificial love without a concrete definition of what love actually is. For Katniss, this love is a duty. Having given up hope of any real goodness or higher justice, Katniss focuses on the one thing she can do and feels obligated to do: save Peeta.
In terms of production, “Mockingjay: Part 1” is very well done — the scenes are short and to the point, moving the story along with flashing images of death and pain, accompanied by a tense soundtrack.
In terms of acting, Jennifer Lawrence effectively portrays a crumbling, angry Katniss whose emotion explodes throughout the film like a loose cannon. Plutarch and President Coin toy with viewers’ intuition, making us like them and distrust them at the same time. Haymitch Abernathy and Effie Trinket are the same as they were in the first two films, supporting Katniss and stabilizing her rage. Effie’s character starts to develop, but both she and Haymitch do little more than provide comic relief, while Gale does nothing more than complicate Katniss’s feelings for Peeta and protect her from bombshells.
As the adaption of a book, the film only encapsulates the first half of the story, but follows the book very closely. Katniss’s first words in the opening scene are almost a direct quote from the first chapter. The emotional struggles Katniss sloughs through in the film mirror her despair in the book, as well as her torn desire to help the revolution and flee responsibility.
While viewers are captivated by Lawrence and the emotional baggage of the film, they are also discouraged by the lack of hope. The film follows Katniss very closely and reacts to her feelings and actions, so every scene is full of pent-up emotion and a sense of foreboding as the film rapidly approaches the series’ climax. There is no ideal, no higher power that Katniss and District 13 cling to as they persevere in their rebellion against the Capitol. They speak of a democratic future, but even that future seems bleak in a country so torn apart by grief and violence.
The lack of hope weighs film down into despair, so while viewers are treated to a fine cinematic experience, they will leave the theater musing over what a world would be like if there was no God, there was no hope, and no remedy for those who struggle with the despair of horrifying ordeals like the Hunger Games.