Hunger Games inspires protesters in France, Digi Mart USA News (France): “If we burn, you burn with us.” That line is one of the most powerful in The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2, the third installment of the saga that Hollywood split into two films, and in recent weeks it has inspired young protesters across France.
The phrase, along with the mockingjay bird, the symbol of resistance in Suzanne Collins’s novels, has been seen repeatedly in marches on placards. On Thursday, November 5, the film’s music once again echoed at Place de la République, performed by the Orchestre du Nouveau Monde, before the Paris march set off.
The reappropriation of the Hunger Games imagery did not escape the saga’s original director, who returns to cinemas on November 18 with a sixth film, a prequel. “It’s a strange feeling,” Francis Lawrence told TF1info.
“I wouldn’t say I entirely like it, because when there are protests, it usually means something is wrong,” he said in an interview conducted October 30 in London, pointing to “the risk of losses and damage” that accompanies such movements.
“It’s always frightening. But I’m glad people find meaning in it,” he added.
About ten years ago, the three-finger salute of the heroine played by Jennifer Lawrence had spread to protests in Thailand.
The young cast members were astonished to learn that French protesters are singing “The Hanging Tree,” the song that became the anthem of the rebellion and whose creation is depicted in The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, released three years ago. “They sing it?!
That’s so cool,” said Joseph Zada, unable to hide his surprise. The 21-year-old Australian actor takes over the role of Haymitch Abernathy from Woody Harrelson, playing the character as a 16-year-old competing in the deadly contest.
“Suzanne Collins wrote the lyrics, Jeremiah Fraites of The Lumineers composed the melody, and James Newton Howard imagined the score,” Francis Lawrence recalled. “That this song resonates enough with people because of how it fits into these stories, that people can use it and give it an even greater meaning, is very moving.
But it’s also truly surreal,” he admitted.
“I find it really great to be part of something that can inspire that kind of spark in a younger generation, and also give people characters to identify with during this period,” said McKenna Grace. The 20-year-old American actress, a former child star, enters the arena of the 50th Hunger Games in The Sunrise on the Reaping, adapted from the novel of the same name published last year.
In this anniversary edition, organized by the totalitarian Capitol, the young Haymitch tries to ignite the spark of revolution, though without succeeding.
“What really struck me about this story is the idea of echoing the apathy that I believe many people feel around the world,” Francis Lawrence said. “Things like: ‘What’s the point of protesting?
What’s the point of voting? I voted in the last election.
It didn’t go the way I wanted.'” “The truth is, if you believe in something, you have to make your voice heard. And you also can’t expect things to change immediately,” the American filmmaker continued.
“I love the passage in the film that says it can take generations but that everyone must do their part. I think it’s very important that we all reflect on that.
If viewers think about it when they leave the cinema, and if it encourages more people to vote and defend their convictions, then that’s fantastic,” he concluded.
Saying the dystopian Hunger Games return to theaters at just the right moment would be an understatement.
