The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2

The unfathomable having become undeniably rational, entrenched rebel forces prepare for an assault on Panem's capitol, the districts conscientiously united, President Snow (Donald Sutherland) locked down and reeling, Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) disobeying direct orders to simply act as messianic catalyst, thereby overtly inspiring heroics, instinctively striking back against iconic tyranny.

But the politicians are aware of their potential post-victory predominance, and fear Everdeen's influence in their reimagined state, divisive hypotheses compromising the purity of their cause, the innocence of guiltless reckoning, pushed propagandistically to the sidelines.

The extraordinary orchestrations of the bellicosely desperate beget a dissolute response with extreme dispassionate contempt.

Two leaders, Snow and President Alma Coin (Julianne Moore), one male, one female, holding on to or coveting supreme authority, drastically maneuvering to inculcate anew.

Throughout The Hunger Games it's clear that the rebel's cause is just.

Snow must be defeated.

He rules absolutely.

Yet in Mockingjay - Part 2 the politics of revenge and their inherent conflagrations remind viewers that citizens of the capitol did not necessarily support Snow, and were indeed terrorized citizens themselves inasmuch as they could not politicize, as a child spots but doesn't give up the Mockingjay, her mother brutally killed moments later.

There's no invincible playbook for such situations, and when terror strikes, or absolutism oppresses, resultant countermeasures can be as uncompromising as those they intend to suppress.

The Mockingjay - Part 2 constructively operates within this volatile antagonism, providing thought provoking disparities for those who engage in war.

The film, on the one hand, seems too sterile, a lack of emotion or a too hardened drive dehumanizing the conflict, making it seem more like a textbook than a testament, still boldly running through the motions.

But on the other, this point of critique fails to recognize the cold calculating dehumanizing affects of war, which turns communities into ordinances, the mischievous into the monstrous.

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1

The Hunger Games return, and President Snow's (Donald Sutherland) grip on his domain loosens as he attempts to augment his stranglehold.

Revolt is in full swing and the people who have nothing are risking their lives to dismantle his order of things.

But they're disorganized, in need of both a communications network to coordinate their freedom fighting and a voice to articulate their common goals.

So they can combat Snow's minions as one.

Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) must decide if she can provide the people with that voice, with that superhuman strength which will give them the courage to persevere.

To sacrifice.

Her situation is extreme.

A tyrannical program of terror has been suffocating free speech and universal human rights for 75 years within her realm, forcing people to work excruciatingly long hours for nothing, at gun point, leaving them with no time to spend with their families, using media to convince them such practices are divine.

Showing off the wealth.

Murdering those who protest.

Mockingjay - Part 1 is bleak but how could it be otherwise?

It's about an unwilling leader coming to terms with their accidental heroism while living underground and fighting an overwhelmingly powerful enemy.

There's no cream or sugar.

No solace.

It still illustrates the end game of tyrannical political programs and the hopeless situation within which its proponents hope to enslave their opposition, who then have no hope but to spend practically every hour of the day working, so they can come home at night and crack open a can of beans, and then watch luxurious images of excess on their television screens.

Mockingjay even shows how the opposition creates propaganda to fight back, calling it propaganda, something I never thought I'd see in a mass produced American film.

Its politics remind me of those from the South Africa Nelson Mandela describes in Long Walk to Freedom, without the focus on race.

How people can treat other people with such disgust makes no sense.

I often think there's a different bible, one where Jesus chills with the rich and viciously punishes the poor for being lazy.

This would explain why tyrannical leaders sometimes seriously promote religion while prominently catering to the interests of the highest bidder.

Balance is the key.

Again, countries like Norway and Sweden seem to have found a working balance, a secular form of Christianity, where the wealthy can still have lots of shiny things and the poor don't have to ingratiatingly prostrate themselves.

Canada's quite a wealthy country as well.

We used to be a leader on the world stage.

Embracing patriarchal buffoonery isn't novel, it's been around a long long time.

The potentiality is built in to postmodern frameworks.

But such frameworks also support countless more cohesive cultural alternatives.

Back to the film, I would have ended it as soon as Peeta (Josh Hutcherson) was overcome.

It is Part 1, and didn't require its own specific ending.

They must have debated that.

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire

Having won the previous year's Hunger Games, Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) and Peeta Mellark (Josh Hutcherson) return to District 12 to attempt to resume their normal lives.

Trauma terrifyingly affects them both as haunting memories short-circuit various pastimes.

President Snow's (Donald Sutherland) fascist ideology continues to crush workers throughout the Districts but Katniss and Peeta have given them something to believe in.

That belief steadily intensifies throughout the progress of a mandatory nationwide tour during which they must demonstrate their loyalty.

But fascist kings stack fascist decks, not really even a deck, and an unforeseen revised savage sewer augustly swells, threatening to tether the people's momentum, to a coerced, despotic, desolate, plain.

Upon which obedience is the only option.

There's a lot happening in The Hunger Games: Catching Fire.

Katniss and Peeta's aforementioned trauma adds depth to Haymitch's (Woody Harrelson) character, justifying his excessive drinking.

Rob Ford is not Haymitch. Rob Ford is being legitimately criticized for drinking and driving and smoking crack cocaine. These are things responsible Mayors don't do. These are things responsible people don't do regardless of occupation.

You almost feel bad for Effie Trinket (Elizabeth Banks) as she makes the best of an abysmal situation by seeming to genuinely care about teamwork.

As one of the participants dies during the Hunger Games's Quarter Quell, the sun rises, thereby symbolizing that there is only freedom in death when living under extreme forms of government.

Protests at the highest level do nothing to dissuade Snow's executive, similar mechanisms existing in Canada before Baldwin and Lafontaine introduced Responsible Government.

Katniss's formidable resolve resplendently radiates as if her just constitution was forged by Barton Street Steel.

A crucial moment during which the expediencies of her predicament neurotically test her herculean will exemplifies this in/dependence (beautifully dependent on championing the rights of the helpless).

Trust becomes a critical factor.

The parts which necessitate action don't focus on the violence but rather the obstructions of the civilized combatants.

The film depicts what it could be like to live somewhere where 1% of the population hold 99% of the wealth and there isn't a democratic system in place guaranteeing fundamental freedoms.

Where one size fits all.

Should probably read the books too.

The Hunger Games

Suppose most people are familiar with what happens in The Hunger Games so I won't spend too much time expanding upon the plot.

An uprising was launched by 12 impoverished districts which was crushed by the powers-that-be. In the aftermath, in order to brutally humiliate their subjects even further, they then created the Hunger Games, a competition wherein a youthful male and female representative from each district is selected to take part in a vicious fight to the death.

24 combatants are chosen and by the end only one remains.

The combatants, referred to as tributes, travel to the capital where they're elaborately decked out and paraded in front of the well-to-do in an ancient romanesque spectacle that's designed to showcase the oppressed and impress potential sponsors. These sponsors can provide you with assistance during the Games thereby enhancing your chances of survival. Ratings are provided to each contestant and they have their chance to prove their worth in front of a select group of interested parties and on television as well.

President Snow (Donald Sutherland) makes it clear that the Games were designed to instil a sense of hope within his destitute subjects, a sense that even though your chances of survival are slim, you still might win and be showered with riches forever after.

Obviously the hope he intends to cultivate isn't seen quite so romantically by the citizens of the districts.

Or the participants of the Hunger Games.

But those who have lucratively profited by the current composition of the state cheer and laugh at the hopeless in a disgusting exercise of affluent vanity.

Refusing to participate in the Hunger Games ensures your death.

Participating in the Hunger Games almost assuredly ensures your death.

So you have an extremist government that castigates the poor and suppresses any form of rational descent, demanding strict obedience to its self-serving whims and designs. Its supporters revel in the bloodthirsty celebration and the families of the participants forlornly sit back and watch.

But sponsors can assist you, give you critical support if you put on a good show.

Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) and Peeta Mellark (Josh Hutcherson) put on the best show they possibly can.

By falling in love.

Love in its true form enables them to change the rules of the game to the vouchsafed delight of their begrudgingly suppliant benefactors.

Thereby suggesting that true love saturated with sacrifice can momentarily defeat the agents of tyranny.

Or that true love fictions are at the heart of the tyrannical enterprise.

Working within a sensationalist frame to provoke a tear jerking deconstructive critical strike disseminating subliminal democratic aftershocks.

Perhaps I expanded upon the plot ad nauseum.

I can't figure out if the end justifies the means.