Schlagwort: ko no mono

It’s an interesting scene, with the insert shots of the close-ups of Hannibal and Will chewing and swallowing and reveling in the flavor of this meal. It is a very disturbing meal. What they do—Hannibal describes a bit of this—is drown the bird in Armagnac and pluck it and roast it, and then it’s eaten all at once. So its bowels are full. Its stomach and lungs are full of Armagnac. So when you bite into it there’s this burst of hot liqueur mixed with its gamey intestines and everything that was in it. The crunching of the bones is actually so sharp that it cuts up the inside of your mouth, so not only are you tasting your own blood but you’re tasting this beautiful songbird at the same time, and it just seems so wicked that it would be an appropriate communion wafer for Hannibal Lecter to offer up in that regard. The scene has a very bizarre sexuality to it, because it’s all of these close-up shots of things going in men’s mouths and then swallowing and eye rolling, so it’s hard not to think of the sexual subtext of what’s happening between these two guys at the same time. It felt like a lot was going on in the scene, not only just the communion but the exchange of body fluids, in a way, and swallowing for God’s sake. [Laughs.] So we can’t claim innocence on that scene.