Watching Hannibal

[przed]

Lured by the evil temptresses halotolerant, norfolkdumpling and dorinda, I decided to give the first episode of Hannibal a go.

Never have I been so conflicted with a show.

On the one hand, it's gorgeously shot, well-written, and Hugh Dancy and Mads Mikkelsen are fantastic individually, and an even better double act.

On the other hand, there are two scenes (just quick ones, involving a corpse and body parts) that got under my skin and had me obsessing over them whilst trying to get to sleep.

I should just call it quits there, but the good stuff is sooo good. And the promised slash looks, forgive me, delicious.

Damn you, Bryan Fuller, and your gorgeous, horrible show.

Comments

[halotolerant.livejournal.com]

kindkit has just started watching Hannibal post-Christmas, and we're doing an episode-discussion watch along thing at his and my journals as we've done with stuff before - Episode One discussion up at his journal now, if you're interested to look at some of things people are saying (you'd be very welcome to chat too, no need to commit to anything i.e. necessarily watching it all, but academic discussion can help with distance?)

One thing I realised re-watching episode one for the discussion yesterday was that it is in many ways the most grim dark and 'real' of the episodes - it's more like a procedural, there are all those dead girls (which is such a cliche, and, as I've said, 'suffering women' is not really an ongoing theme). Now, there is more *gore* per se in some other eps but _ I would argue - greater detachment from connecting to the real world.

That said, I don't want you having nightmares! *hugs* I would honestly recommend you skip episode 6 of S1. However, I think one could make the case for you reading about episodes 2-6 (either on wikipedia or via our discussion) and then watching Ep 7 and Ep8, which ND and I call the 'romcom episodes' - still violent, but that's the point where the series really does leap off into more camp and ridiculousness and also much more queerness. Still gory, but... well certainly only *as* gory as Ep 1 and in - I think - much less 'real' context. And then you could see if you wanted to persist past that (as I've said, if you ever want me to give you a content rundown for an ep before you watch, I'm happy to do it *g*)

[przed.livejournal.com]

I did see kindkit's discussion thread and dipped my toe in. I was interesting to see what everyone's take on it was. (I didn't have much to add beyond what I've said here.) But even if I don't continue watching, I'll be seeing what everyone has to say.

I've been analyzing my responses to this episode. Though they were upsetting, the dead girls, per se, weren't what freaked me out. It comes down to one line of dialogue and one shot. It was when they found the girl impaled on the antlers. The dialogue in question was Scott Thompson's character pointing out that her lungs were removed while she was still alive. Then you cut to a close up shot of Hannibal cutting up the lungs. All of which triggered my mind to start going down some very dark pathways of what that girl went through. So here's the thing. If the gore is just dead bodies, I think I'll be fine. (That's similar to the first season of True Detective, which I very much enjoyed.) If there's an emphasis on what the victims went through first, whether through dialogue or actually showing it on screen, then I'm out.

Reading up on episodes 2 to 6, and then watching 7 and 8 seems a possible way to get a sense of the show without doing my head in.

[kindkit.livejournal.com]

Hi! Hope you don't mind my barging in--I sort of followed Halo here. It seems LJ now sends you a notification if someone mentions you in a comment.

I think we're similar as viewers in that I really can't handle torture-porn type things where there's a focus on the victim's suffering. I was nervous about watching the show because of that, but so far (I'm now almost halfway through season 2) there hasn't, in my opinion, been much of it. There've been a couple of moments I could have done without, but for me--of course your mileage may vary--it helps that everything in the show is so aestheticized and grandly operatic, because it's easier for me to detach a bit. But I also don't think the show expects us to enjoy seeing or imagining people physically suffer. Mental and emotional suffering, though, is kind of what the show is built on. But it's Will Graham's suffering, mostly.

I'm very happy that I started watching, for whatever that's worth.

[przed.livejournal.com]

Hey there! Feel free to barge away.

It assuages my fears somewhat that you have the same sensitivities and have made it through the show thus far. Because I am intrigued by what I've seen so far, and would like to continue. I may use your posts with Halo to pre-vet episodes, though, and makes sure I can handle things.

[przed.livejournal.com]

BTW, the Sweetie keeps bugging me to ask if in your viewing of Mads' films you've seen Flickering Lights. He just saw a local screening of it and quite liked it. Though it sounds like Mads plays a character on the crazy end of his spectrum who's interesting rather than entirely likable.

[halotolerant.livejournal.com]

I hadn't heard of that one, and thank you so much for putting me onto it because from IMDB it sounds really interesting! It doesn't seem to have a DVD release currently with English subtitles (which I think explains why I didn't find it in my searches before) but if there was a recent showing perhaps a new DVD is forthcoming? I hope so!