Silence of the Lambs, Aenima

I’ve watched Silence of the Lambs three times in the last week.  It’s much deeper than your garden variety horror flick.  Above all it’s a movie about change, just like the Tool album Aenima.  These two works of art are dark and mysterious but complement each other perfectly.  The serial killer Buffalo Bill in Silence uses metamorphic imagery in bugs and female skinscaping to create a new identity for himself.  On the album Aenima, Maynard is trying to change too, though not in quite so morbid a fashion.  At the end he screams prying open my third eye about 10 times- a reference to enlightenment.  I imagine Aenima would have been one of Buffalo Bill’s favorite albums, if he’d lived until 1996 anyway.

I was turned onto the movie because Candy quotes from it all the time.  Tedious darling, very tedious.  As I got sucked into the strange interplay between Hannibal and Clarice, something clicked in me that resonated strongly with what’s happened recently in my personal life.  The scenes where he breaks down her psychology are darkly inspiring, especially the one where she reveals her dream about the lamb.  I wonder if I’ve ever made Candy feel that way during our playful spats- she’s sure disarmed me a couple times.

On a final note, I must point out how disappointing the sequel Hannibal was.  There was too much gore, not enough stimulating conversation like the original had.  And the absence of Jodie Foster made it less realistic.  One thing I did enjoy was seeing the culture of Florence.  It made me want to go there someday, to see the sights as Hannibal did.  They don’t have a name for what he is.  Neither do they have one for me it seems.