By Lucie Burns
Staff Writer
“The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes” recently premiered in theaters as a prequel to the four-movie “Hunger Games” series. This series, including the prequel, is a film adaptation of the novels by Suzanne Collins. I have not personally read the novels, so I cannot speak on whether this film was accurate to its original source, but it definitely develops key points that appear in the other films of the franchise. I would highly recommend watching the other movies or at least reading a summary beforehand or this film won’t make much sense to you at all. Reading this review probably won’t make much sense either if you haven’t viewed the original series.
This film follows the life of a prominent villain of the “Hunger Games” series, President Snow, before he became a ruler of all the districts. While mainly about Coriolanus Snow (Tom Blyth), his story becomes intertwined with that of Lucy Gray Baird (Rachel Zegler), a tribute from District 12 of the 10th annual Hunger Games.
The movie did a great job of showing how underdeveloped the tenth annual Hunger Games were, especially in comparison to seeing the 74th and 75th ones in the regular series. After all, the prequel is set many years prior to the series, right after the games were originally started. The setting of the games being in a colosseum-like arena really emphasizes how the games looked like prior to large technological advancements within this fictional universe.
In this specific game, a new system was introduced where students who lived in the Capitol districts, also known as the richest ones, would each mentor a tribute of the games, coaching them to win. An incentive was offered to the mentor whose tribute won: the Printh Prize scholarship. Despite President Snow’s tyrannical ruling we see in the series, in this movie, he grew up very poor, so he sought after winning this scholarship to continue his education.
During his mentorship, Snow actually introduces many modern ideas of the games in the original series, such as developing a connection between the tributes of the games and the audience, to gain more sympathy and interest from the viewers. This can be seen in the “Hunger Games” series when the tributes are broadcasted to the public and even voted upon to see who is the most favored tribute.
The other main character, Lucy Gray, introduces a prominent element into the film: music. She travels around, playing songs with her music group called the Covey, but she is originally from District 12. Throughout the movie, her songs embody a voice of the revolution against the government for introducing the Hunger Games, which is a central theme in the original series as well. Some of her songs can be heard in the “Hunger Games” series sung by the main character, Katniss. It was very interesting to learn the origin of these songs and how they must have been passed down generation by generation if Katniss knew them.
These songs sung by Lucy Gray are an excellent addition to the movie’s soundtrack. Along with her songs about revolution, the soundtrack also features songs from popular artists Flatland Cavalry and Olivia Rodrigo. The intensity of Lucy Gray’s final song in the arena displays her vocal talent and complexity well. The song is raw and filled with emotion, making it very powerful. Rachel Zegler’s acting and singing talents in this movie impressed me, especially in this scene.
Without giving away any spoilers, this movie was filled with betrayal, and I became angry while watching several times. I enjoy when a movie has the ability to provoke emotions, because that is how I know the movie was written and produced well.
I really enjoyed this movie, despite the fact that the beginning was not as interesting due to having scenes with not much action in them. However, it really picked up within the next few parts of the movie, containing many dramatic scenes filled with action. But overall, I can see Hunger Games fans thoroughly enjoying this movie, as well as those who are appreciative of music, as this film showed the raw power of music, and its power when it can be used for propaganda purposes. It was very interesting to see Snow’s downfall throughout the film, and what exactly led to him becoming a villain.
If I had to change one thing, I would have liked to see more of the character Tigris, played by Hunter Schafer. Tigris is Snow’s cousin, and she only made an appearance a few times in this movie. In the “Hunger Games” movies, we only see her once, but it is clear that she is fighting against Snow in the revolution, so I would like to see more of her character development and how she turned against Snow.
