Bryan Fuller’s Hannibal – Of Men, Gods and Monsters

Hannibal Lecter: See? This is all I ever wanted for you Will.

Will Graham: It’s beautiful.

Officially, “Hannibal” ended last night. For the past weeks, the fans had to adapt. The Canadian stations had kept running the show on the original slot while the US channels moved it on the Saturday night program. Articles had been going back and forth, from reviews, to elaborate pieces on why on God’s green Earth, NBC had canceled Bryan Fuller’s take on the iconic Thomas Harris character. The fans, these beloved Fannibals had tightened their ranks and together with the cast, crew and production company fought to find a new home. The battle continues.

I’m not going to get into an elaborate review. At this hour, every website, publication, reviewer and fan said his piece. Right now, I’m struggling to put my thoughts into something of a coherent string. At the end of the day, I find myself closer to the fans than with the journalists. Perhaps it’s the shared communion of thoughts, theories, midnight woes and early morning tribulations over the fate of our beloved characters.

I’ve began reading Thomas Harris books in my teens, after I’d seen “Silence of the Lambs”. Back then, no one would beat Sir Anthony Hopkins portrayal of the sophisticated gentlemen cannibal. If I had to give the Devil his due over the many time I rooted with the villains and anti-heroes, right now I would shamelessly walk down the path of the damned, straight into the Inferno with my conscience clear. I’ve kept coming to the books, the movies. The lure was impossible to avoid or break but in 2013 I got a weekly fix.

I bet you’ve read a lot of articles and reviews praising the acting skills of the cast – they deserve it -, the audacity of the screenwriters to come with such dark, Gothic take of the source material – they really have to be praised, especially taking in account “Hannibal” lived for three years chez NBC, a station conventional and prone to ratings in the vein of a corporate structure analyzing daily the KPIs.  “Hannibal” is a labor of love, starting with Bryan Fuller, going to the crew from DeLaurentiis fighting the good fight to find a new home for season 4 – or the funds for a movie (right now, I’ll take my “Hannibal” fix anyway I can, even if it comes in the form a kabuki piece).

“Hannibal” succeed where two adaptations of “Red Dragon” failed and took a new daring spin on the whole “Hannibal – the movie and book”.  It added passion, fire, heart, empathy and character development. The book ended with a fallen Will Graham, disfigured and finding solace in every empty glass. Hugh Dancy added layers, made me like a character for whom I had little to no emotion. The path Will takes and his Becoming had the epicness of any superhero movie in terms of creating the origin tale of a not so perfect hero. By his side was, the God, the Devil, the monster, the mask, the mystery. His damnation and redemption. His brother, his soulmate. Hannibal Lecter played by Mads Mikkelsen. With a rich material and a penchant for elaborate sets and cinematographic vision, we came back, us, we (not) so few, we band of Fannibals, to be challenged. To become.

In a world in which we were raised to have a moral compass, support the heroes and despise the villains, I ended up being addicted to the love, the brotherhood and the intensity of the relationship between an emphatic, unstable profiler and a manipulative, gentlemen cannibal. Life is not a black and white string of conventional rants.

Since Friday morning, the videos, the tributes, the tweets and signs of devotion from the fans come, together with the interviews and the cast and production’s messages.

In a land of Gods and Monsters I’ve found clarity. With every punctuated syllable coming from Bedelia, Hannibal and Will. With every chromatic palette blended into the scenes. With every vice, with every forgiveness laid on a silver platter in a sea of dark blood. I was lost and then I was found. Io sono in pace…vide cor meum.

Love crime
I will survive, live and thrive…

Become the beast
We don’t have to hide…