In times of war there is no guarantee, except this: every revolution, inevitably, has an end. It is impossible to predict whether it will change the world, or whether the balance will tip in favor of the dissidents, or whether the wounds will be worth it in the long term. The only thing you can always count on is an outcome, and in the case of the post-apocalyptic story written by Suzanne Collins, this means diving headlong—and for the first time—into the rawness of the battle, thus, at point-blank range, or in the case of Katniss Everdeen, with only a couple of arrows behind her back. Gone are the hesitations or desk conspiracies. For the Mockingjay and her allies, the key moment has arrived in The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2: enter the Capitol, bleed on the way and try to defeat the last bastion of the dictatorship.
“We could say that this is a much more warlike film,” director Francis Lawrence revealed to us, who returns to conclude the saga. “I don’t know if it is more violent, because all the previous installments have had their significant doses of blood, but there are strong things. Of course, this has nothing to do with wanting to reach an older audience. It’s just that history demands it. It is a violent ending. Katniss jumps into the action and goes in search of President Snow. She goes in search of revenge.”
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What sounds like a suicide mission is also the opportunity for the Girl on Fire to—finally!—follow her own hunches, far from the dictates of District 13 President Alma Coin (Julianne Moore) and the interests tactics and politicians of the other leaders of the rebellion. What will she do, follow orders or pursue her own goals? We know her well enough to know which option will be the winner; However, her path will not be easy.
In fact, the long-awaited flight of the Mockingjay faces challenges that go beyond defeating the regime of Coriolanus Snow (Donald Sutherland) once and for all. It must be epic enough to, on the one hand, conclude with great fanfare a film saga that has generated more than $2.3 billion in global box office and, on the other, demonstrate beyond a doubt why it was completely necessary to divide the film in two. third book in the trilogy, a decision that was questioned a lot after the premiere of Mockingjay – Part 1.
Fortunately, everything seems to indicate that it will have the necessary ingredients to pass the tests. The fourth and final installment of The Hunger Games says goodbye to Katniss Everdeen with an exciting journey to the heart of Panem—which we had never seen before—and puts her where we wanted to see her from the beginning: at the peak of the rebellion and with Snow’s life in her hands.
In the eye of battle
On fire and Mockingjay – Part 1 They showed us a Katniss reluctant to fight, The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2 brings us a heroine eager to go to the front and obtain justice. After waking up injured by the attacks of a deranged Peeta (Josh Hutcherson), she is assigned to Squad 451, made up of a group of star soldiers destined to be the image of the storming of the Capitol.
Our favorite allies from District 13—barely introduced in the previous sequel—will finally have the chance to show what they’re made of, as they will be key elements of the mission. Such is the case of Boggs (Mahershala Ali), Cressida (Natalie Dormer) and Messalla (Evan Ross). Also in this platoon are the darlings of the audience: Gale (Liam Hemsworth), Finnick (Sam Claflin) and even Peeta, with all his reality distortion problem, who will also be joined by new military faces who will help Katniss during the advance.
The journey of this squad will show us a new and very hostile landscape, which we had only seen from afar and from the windows of Katniss’ suite during those times when she was training as a tribute. In this film, the underground and claustrophobic District 13 gives way to the wide and dangerous streets of the Capitol, where the final fight will be fought. To get the locations with the right dystopian look, the production left Atlanta (where District 13 was recreated) and traveled to the Old World. There, the director chose places on the outskirts of Paris and Berlin:
“I didn’t want to use CGI to create it because I’m a fan of using real locations whenever possible. So, when you add the digital elements, you do it in a real environment that looks authentic. It’s quite challenging because you don’t control all the elements, the changing weather or even the people. We had been in Paris for two weeks and the inhabitants were already upset. They threw things at us through the windows (laughs). But the result is worth it.”
Continue reading: The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2, the end of the revolution.
According to the director, the main challenge was to recreate, in real locations, the ingenious mechanisms of death that President Snow has prepared for the rebels. Stepping on the Capitol has never been as dangerous as it is now because, although the Hunger Games are behind us, violence continues to be a source of entertainment for the government, so fond of murdering its adversaries in the most spectacular way possible. Katniss and his group of soldiers will once again have to endure a style obstacle course. rallyvery similar to what we saw in past editions of the deadly contest.
“The idea of war converted into something sickly playful and that has permeated the entire saga is preserved until the end, even in the middle of the battle. It was a lot of fun to create the traps that Snow places in the streets and tunnels because they are very visual, but we had to figure out how they would work in real locations, what their physical character would be,” explained the director, who had to find suitable corners for each pod. “For example, there is a sequence in which large amounts of toxic oil are spilled. We couldn’t do that on an open street, so we looked for a block in the city that was closed, where we could put people in a kind of fish tank that would fill up.”
With these kinds of obstacles, scenarios and emotions, the fourth installment of the saga will remind us, more than ever, of what is usually forgotten when following in the footsteps of our favorite heroes: that war is chaotic, it leaves indelible marks and, Above all, it is difficult to distinguish the good ones from the bad ones. It doesn’t matter if you have a Mockingjay, if you are a rebel or an inhabitant of the Capitol… if it is Panem or the real world.
Goodbye girl on fire
“Bittersweet”, “emotional”, “sad, but necessary” were some of the adjectives used by the director and the cast to describe the last day on set, approximately a year ago in Berlin and after nine months of continuous filming (the production filmed The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1 and Part 2 one after another).
“Finalizing it was very satisfying for me and I can promise it will be the same for the audience. Above all, because we had never had an ending! None of the previous installments really ended. It remained in a sort of ‘to be continued’. There is a resolution here: all the energies, relationships, ideas and dreams that we have built grow and conclude. We are not making nods to possible future films. If Suzanne Collins writes more stories, so much the better. But, for now, this is goodbye,” revealed Francis, who has directed the last three installments of the saga.
In this way, the story of Katniss Everdeen – the girl who only wanted to protect her sister and ended up becoming a revolutionary – ends as it began: demonstrating in a specific and needed time in the entertainment industry that an action heroine can conquer massive audiences. And not just any heroine, but a female character who is also a teenager. Just as Katniss rarely did what was expected of “a girl,” her franchise refused to be pigeonholed.
“There were two main beliefs,” said producer Nina Jacobson. “One was that women could identify with male characters, but that men could not do the same with heroines. The other was that the age of your protagonist was a reflection of the age of your audience. So, you always tried to cast actors a little older than what was said in the books, because according to this no one could empathize with a younger character. Harry Potter proved that was not true. What is known is that very special materials are needed to transcend these conventions. In the end, the problems of young people and adults are different. Therefore, you need real drama and a great universe, like here. The key is not in making movies young adultbut in making universal young characters.”
In a way, you could say that the saga was like a mockingjay in itself; That is to say, a new “kind” of franchise, which went beyond “youthful” schemes and became a form of entertainment that broke conventions. Four years ago it started when there was a thirst for fantasies that appealed to multiple audiences; Now, it ends amid protests and debates about the place of women and heroines in Hollywood. This is how Katniss advocates one last time to send age and gender beliefs and conventions to hell. The revolution has arrived and, thanks to it, neither Panem nor the entertainment industry will be the same again.
A version of this article was first published in the Special Edition of The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – The End of Cinema PREMIERE in November 2015.
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Jessica Oliva Journalist, editor at Cine PREMIERE and frustrated dancer in her free time. She enjoys cinema, literature, tango, useless data and the opportunity to stay up late doing whatever.