THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS

Yet another FBI agent is sent to see Lecter in an attempt to prise information from his mind which will help the FBI solve a case related to ... you guessed it, a psychopathic killer on the loose. This time the agent is one Clarice Starling [Jodie Foster]. Foster's Starling engages Hopkins' Lecter in an extremely taut cat-and-mouse interplay which delivers what must be called some of the finest scenes in movie history in which Lecter trades information on the killer for an equally probing insight into the life of Clarice Starling.

After a special deal is done with Lecter, in which he gets transferred from the care of Dr. Chilton [or, as Lecter more aptly put it, delivered from Chilton's "petty torments"] as the reward for trading information about the pyschopath Jame Gumb, the movie ends with the Dr making his daring escape, more than ready to embark on his new found freedom and resume the career he was forced to drop for some time ... a cliffhanger to the extreme. Movie-goers have to wait a decade before the exploits of Lecter are revealed again to a more than welcoming audience.

Basically, my favourite out of the 4. Unlike the followup Hannibal, Silence ... manages to convey a very distinct mood over the entire film that is in keeping with the more obscure sentiments of the book. I think Demme did an excellent job of portraying the feel of things in this movie, and I've got to say that Ridley Scott's Hannibal does pale somewhat next to it. Key scenes, such as our first encounter with Lecter are simply awesome to see over and over again. Fully deserves the Academy Awards it got. It is an interesting excercise to compare how Hannibal turned out as compared to what Demme did with the source material in Silence. His decisions in this regard tell a lot about why this movie was quite a pivotal moment for the genre. I'd definitely pay money to see it again at the theatre :) Again, and again and again and again ... :: Remember to check out the Special Image Gallery!