The Silence of the Lambs (1991)

It is a creepy and taken-by-storm experience with the film, background music is darker than the film itself and too ominous, plot is brilliantly constructed, conversations are thought-provocative, to crown the whole, Jodie Foster and Anthony Hopkin are the cream. They take ownership of Clarice and Hannibal respectively, transforming them into the most unforgettable screen images.

The psychological path of Hannibal is hard to trace. He is so odd a mixture of intelligence, cruelty, insanity, grace and charisma. In the depth, fledgling FBI trainee Clarice is no match of him. She is still naive yet very ambitious. On the trail of the serial killer Buffalo Bill, she's sent to interview him, a psychiatrist-turned-cannibal. Hannibal is willing to provide clues to finding the killer but only in return for personal information about Clarice herself. He calls it Quid Pro Quo. In those mind games, the two dance backward and forward between cannibal and FBI agent, mentor and student, psychiatrist and patient, father and daughter. It is Clarice who breathes life into the multidimensional sophisticated psychopath and Hannibal who nudges the aspiring student FBI agent and helps her achieve her first success in a world of Y chromosome where her guru Crawford uses her, embarrasses her, excludes her; Doctor Chilton regards her no more than a simple-minded woman and tries to flirt with her. Frankly speaking, though no lack of other impressive scenes, it's really the nerves fights between Hannibal and Clarice that carries the film.

Some of the horrible scenes involve Buffalo Bill who, a transvestite, skins his victims, especially woman victims. But the most terrifying one is Clarice's single-handed trace in Buffalo Bill's gruesome den, which also has become another irony to the self-important testosterone-dominated world. Crawford's misjudgment and stubbornness makes him out of the right track, a special anti-terror deployment resulting in vain. But Clarice, though excluded from the business which she should be on, still holds onto her intuition and through on-the-spot investigation finds the serial killer at last. She has to take on him herself. (Demme uses "deceptive cutting" there to enhance the tension.) It is definitely a life-or-death fight, especially when Clarice is in the dark, groping her way in absolute terror. I have no doubt everyone holds the breath when the film rolls to that part.

A gripping film that well deserved its Oscars