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I Eat Cannibals: Hannibal Offers Food for Thought

Does the Asian boy in Hannibal know a good cut of human? Photo courtesy of MGM.

Spoiler alert: pivotal plot points — and suspicious casting choices —exposed

I just saw Hannibal and I’m, ahem, hungry for an explanation. And I’m not talking about an explanation regarding the blockbuster’s lack of narrative logic, a recognizable story arc and any remote reason why the guy with the carved up face, played by an unrecognizable Gary Oldman, was tossed to a hoard of carnivorous hogs by his otherwise loyal physician.

Ever since the book came out to scathing reviews, and Jodie Foster and director Jonathan Demme were replaced by Julianne Moore and Ridley Scott, respectively, I’ve been expecting to hate this movie — partly because I loved its predecessor, Silence of the Lambs. So I entered the theater fully expecting to writhe in my seat, grossed out by, but amused at, the outrageous, royal badness of Hannibal.

I was a little shocked that I enjoyed it more than I expected. There was a dark, fairy-tale inevitability standing in for the logic of realism. There was a bizarre, Grand Guignol black humor, and an even weirder romanticism.

Not only does serial killer and gentleman cannibal Hannibal Lecter, played with stoic yet smoldering insanity by Anthony Hopkins, ride in on his white Concorde to save the day for his lady love Clarice — but he cooks! (So what if they’re human body parts?) He cleans! (The bloody aftermath, anyway.) He employs candles to create romantic mood lighting! (Of course, he breaks into and enters her house in the process.) He even buys Clarice Gucci heels. (Can we spell ‘fetishism,’ girls?)

In Hopkins’ hands, Hannibal nearly resembles a fallen guardian angel — with a connoisseur’s appreciation for both Clarice’s wholesome goodness and freshly butchered police-inspector sweet breads. Heck, they could have called this movie “Human Remains of the Day.”

What there was of a story didn’t bother me. What stood out for me were the instances when race was foregrounded in the film. There was the initial gun battle between a black female drug lord with her crew, and Clarice Starling (Moore), with her seemingly all-Caucasian crew of FBI agents, but the issue particularly struck me during the few instances Asians were on screen.

When greedy inspector Rinaldo Pazzi is disemboweled and dangled from the windows of Florence’s Uffizi Gallery, there’s the inevitable group of Japanese tourists below — cameras in hand, of course. When the body is tossed over, dripping ropes of innards, the tourists immediately perk up, point and chatter excitedly, even laugh.

Then there are the final moments of the film. Lecter is on a plane, about to dig into his Dean & Deluca box lunch of caviar and some little meaty unmentionables in Tupperware that obviously didn’t come straight off the shelf from D&D. A little Asian boy approaches him, curious about the special meal, and after the good doctor offers him a rundown, the boy looks like he wants to try the mystery meat. Lecter offers him a taste of the morsel, muttering something about how it can’t hurt, as the camera closes in on one evil eye.

How does one interpret those scenes? Maybe the viewer is supposed to contrast the Asian characters’ innocence with the serial killer’s corruption.

The bottom line is, the Asian characters aren’t repelled by Lecter and his eating habits, but rather, are attracted to and even feel empathy toward him. More likely, the viewer is led to subtly believe that Lecter is more similar to the Asian characters than not: He’s exotic, unknowable and “other” — with intimations of “oriental” perversity, sadism and cruelty.

The Asian characters also seem to be inserted into the film for cruder, comparative reasons. Take, for instance, the climactic scene of Lecter slicing apart and sautéeing the brain of Paul Krendler (Ray Liotta). As the drugged-up victim sits babbling at the table, he recalls nothing less than the gross-out tales — real or not — of Chinese diners chowing down on monkey brains served on the half skull, as the creature dangles below a hole cut in the table.

Appetizing. I’ve always been oddly proud of Chinese cuisine and the way it encompasses all imaginable ingredients. But I was curious to see if there was a monkey brain counterpart to the Hannibal scene on film. So after some brainstorming — no pun intended — I dashed out to Le Video in San Francisco’s Inner Sunset district to check out their massive selection of cult videos. The schlocky ’60s and ’70s exploitation films Mondo Cane and Shocking Asia seemed like a good bet.

Sadly, the closest thing on Mondo Cane was a reference to Taipei restaurants that served dog. And the nearest things to monkey brain sashimi in Shocking Asia were a Singapore joint that flayed bats on request and a Japanese restaurant that served snake blood tonics and serpent stir-fry.

Frankly, the only shocking thing about Shocking Asia was its patronizing commentary and its blatant rip-off moments, such as reused footage from the original Mondo Cane of the Malaysian village of shark-fin gatherers who were missing a variety of body parts, thanks to the sharks who wanted to keep their fins. It’s a human-eat-dog world out there.

So Hannibal broke new ground in a sense, I suppose. Admittedly, this is not a film that seems to be overtly concerned with race on one level — dark meat, white meat, red meat, yellow meat — it’s all gristle for the mill for an omnivore such as Lecter. And almost anything has potential with a little balsamic, a good olive oil, and a fresh herb or two.