HANNA
by Michael B. Druxman on 09/07/11
September 8, 2011
If you are an animal lover, I suggest that you do not see HANNA, which has just been released onto DVD.
This is the 2011 movie about the young teenage assassin that stars Saoirse Ronan, Eric Bana and Cate Blanchett.
Why shouldn't you see it?
In the opening scene the Hanna character is out hunting and she kills a reindeer with a bow-and-arrow. Since the sequence was shot in Finland and the Animal Humane Society was not involved, there is a serious concern that the reindeer was, in fact, killed.
Truthfully, I don't know if the deer was killed or not.
I spoke to people at the Animal Humane Society and they weren't sure
either, though the picture's distributor, Focus Films, told them it wasn't.
[Animal Humane has
received many calls on this scene.]
But, even the deer wasn't killed, that scene was a big mistake.
If you are an "animal person," then once this scene appears on the
screen, you sit there wondering if the deer was really killed...and it
takes you out of the picture.
Frankly, I could never get involved with the movie because I kept
thinking about the reindeer. I even watched the entire end credit
sequence, looking for the "No animal was harmed..." disclaimer that
never came.
The director (Joe Wright) could have made exactly the same point by shooting the
reindeer sequence a different way, and if he had done that, he would not
have alienated a segment of his audience.
Yes, I'm a "Bambi lover," and very proud to be one.
You have a creative day.
Michael
