In The Hunger Games: A Song of Birds and Snakes, no one can escape their destiny [REVIEW]

In Hunger Games, we are taught to root for Katniss Everdeen. The series of books written by Suzanne Collinswhich was soon adapted for cinema in four films starring Jennifer Lawrence (What Time Will I Pick You Up?), addresses a dystopian society, in which Panem, commanded by the Capital, forces the inhabitants of its twelve districts to offer their children to fight for their lives, partly as entertainment, partly as punishment for having dared to rebel against the ruling class in the past.

However, I always thought that Hunger Games I had a focus problem. Aimed at children and young people, the story makes the audience fall in love with Kat niss ever deenas well as Peeta Mellark (lived by Josh Hutchersonin Five Nights at Freddy’s), and turns the attempt to overthrow an oppressive government into a fight for a couple’s survival – at least, in the eyes of those watching. The cruelty of the Capital and the need to end its system of destruction only comes into focus when it directly affects the protagonists.

It is not a demerit to Hunger Games, which still stands out as one of the best stories of its kind, especially when it comes to a product aimed at a younger audience. However, in The Hunger Games: Song of Birds and Snakes, which hits theaters this Wednesday, November 15th, this focus problem no longer exists. The new feature brings a much more mature story, which still talks about love and its different ways of influencing people’s hearts, but also shows how no one can escape their destiny when it is already part of you.

What is the story of The Song of Birds and Serpents?

The Hunger Games: Song of Birds and Snakes takes us back about sixty years to the past, to a time when the Capitol was still trying to recover from the war and the Hunger Games had already been going on for ten years. However, in the meantime, even the inhabitants of the Capital are losing interest in the event, finding no purpose in witnessing the brutal deaths of several young people each year.

In order to change this, the Academy, a prestigious school in the city, decides to choose 24 brilliant students to become mentors for the competitors of the 10th edition of the Hunger Games and help change this lack of interest among spectators of the event. One of them is Coriolanus Snow (Tom Blyth, Billy the Kid), heir to one of the noblest and richest families in Panem, but who hides the secret that, in fact, he doesn’t even have anything to eat.

By accepting the mission of mentoring one of the games’ tributes, the plan of Snow is to win a cash prize to be able to study at university and lift your family out of poverty. However, their chances of winning become considerably smaller when the fragile but bold Lucy Gray Baird (Rachel Zegler, Shazam! Gods Fury), from District 12, is selected as her mentee.

Determined to win the prize despite the obstacles, Snow devises a plan to put his competitor in the spotlight, making the public start rooting for the tributes and helping them with gifts in the arena, among other seductive news, which would lead the Hunger Games to become the great spectacle that we would witness for many years to come. after when Katniss would have his turn in the competition.

It is to fulfill his plan that he comes closer and closer to Lucy Gray and soon, his mission changes to an attempt to save the girl’s life, with whom he ends up falling in love. However, what he still didn’t know, but would take into his life, even after becoming the fearsome president of Panem, is that “It’s the things we love most that destroy us”.

new film by Hunger Gamesshows the origin of the villain Snow

What do we think of the film?

The new film Hunger Games is divided into three parts, which show the preparation for the Hunger Games, the holding of the 10th edition of the event and the consequences of events inside and outside the arena. It is through Snow that we follow the story, a curious narrative decision in itself, since, probably, no fan of the stories of Katniss I would never imagine putting myself in the shoes of the franchise’s villain.

But the choice is also interesting because it places us inside the Capital and much closer to the horrors of the Hunger Games, something that the previous films didn’t do so well. As the deadly event is still quite irregular at that time, without having gone through the Snow until then, everything is much more brutal and cruel. At times, it is even difficult to follow. If in games Katnisseverything is well thought out to be a long show, which will hold the audience for days, here the expectation is that the bloodbath will end in just a few hours.

Furthermore, in The Song of Birds and Serpents, at every moment, it seems that a new rebellion, once promoted by the districts, is beginning to be born within the Capital itself, starting from the revolt of a people fed up with being complacent with the deadly punishment applied to the people of Panem. And it is at this point that the film definitively turns to Snow and what led the Hunger Games to last for another sixty years until the arrival of Kat niss ever deen and its revolution.

I could never imagine, while reading books or watching films, Hunger Gamesfollow a story focused on the life of the president Snow. Until the final minutes of the film, I wondered how the young man featured in The Song of Birds and Serpents ended up becoming the great villain shown in Hunger Gamesa man who destroyed so many enemies in his quest for power, who fought to maintain the Hunger Games, who ended District 12 and so many other evil deeds.

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And then, in the last scenes of the new film, the arc ends perfectly. I always admired Hunger Games because, among so many successful children’s franchises launched at the same time, I never opted for the easier and The Song of Birds and Serpents sustains this characteristic of the story, now transported to cinema screens by the hands of Francis Lawrencewho helmed three of the four films in the original franchise.

In The Song of Birds and Serpents, Snow begins as a young man desperate to save his family and himself and evolves into a man in love, who would do anything to share his life with the girl he loves, including leaving his past behind and his family, for whom he fought so hard. , to their own luck.

Then the film gives us a good trick, proving, with just a handful of sentences, that Snow he could never escape his destiny. Even if he tried to deceive himself, his ambition would take him back to the path set for him even before his birth, which makes the story even more interesting and The Hunger Games: Song of Birds and Snakes the best film in the franchise released to date.