Lawrence: The Hunger Games - Mockingjay Part 1 (2014)

Mockingjay Part 1 is the first film in the Hunger Games franchise that doesn’t actually take place in the Hunger Games themselves, which gives it quite a different feeling from The Hunger Games and Catching Fire. Opening with Katniss (Jennifer Lawrence) regaining consciousness after attacking the Capitol’s forcefield, it’s set mainly underground, in District 13, and only really ventures above ground to visit the decimated ruins of the other Districts in the wake of the Capitol’s counter-attack. Lit largely with oily, artificial light, it often looks a lot like a dystopian video game, caked in subterranean textures that strongly recall the Appalachian protest palette of the first film, especially when Katniss is forced to confront the destruction of District 12, in a kind of sublime bluegrass apocalypse painted with celluloid. Against that backdrop, the narrative is much moodier and more internalised than in the previous two films, largely subsisting on Katniss’ efforts to consolidate her anger and horror into a clear revolutionary goal in tandem with the Rebellion leaders, who quickly realise that she’s the ideal figure to co-ordinate the various “riots, protests and strikes” scattered across Panem into a unified movement. For that reason, most of the dramatic momentum is fuelled by Katniss coming to revolutionary consciousness, which gives the film quite an awe-inspiring feel at moments, along with a quietly revelatory quality, with Katniss spending most of her time waiting, watching and thinking, just as the camera seems to offer itself as a witness, or to encourage you bear witness in turn. In fact, one effect of splitting Mockingjay into two films is that this revolutionary introspection more or less eclipses any real romantic or even interpersonal content, with the great majority of Katniss’ interactions being directed through the President and Advisor of District 13, played by Julianne Moore and Philip Seymour Hoffman, who are, in one sense, the two main characters in the film. Perhaps that’s why it feels more adult than the first two films, or than most teen films that are out at the moment, which is not to say that it’s ashamed of its teen credentials, or anxious to gain some kind of highbrow distance from them, but that it respects the adult in the young adult Katniss is becoming enough to take her and her audience as seriously as it possibly can.