Hanna (****)

Directed by: Joe Wright

Starring: Saoirse Ronan, Eric Bana, Cate Blanchett, Jessica Barden, Tom Hollander, Olivia Williams, Jason Flemyng

Seen: May 30^th 2011

**** Out of ****

Hanna (Ronan) and her father Erik (Bana) live alone near the Arctic, where he intensely trains her as an assassin. The movie starts with her hunting a deer with bow and arrow, and while busy with the deer, her dad creeps up on her, telling her that she’s dead, he’s killed her. She will do better next time she replies. At night they sit by the hearth and Erik reads Hanna portions of encyclopaedias, trying to prepare her for the world. One evening he shows Hanna a switch which, if she flips it, will tell Marissa Wiegler (Blanchett) where they are. The movie cuts to a CIA building, where an agent tells Wiegler that they’ve picked up this signal and that they believe it to be Erik Heller, but when Marissa sends a team to apprehend them they find only Hanna, and take her into custody.

Hanna wreaks havoc at the CIA installation where she’s kept and escapes into the desert, where she meets a travelling family on holiday. Sebastian (Flemyng) and Rachel (Williams) are very open-minded parents to Sophie (Barden) and her little brother. Hanna stows away on their van as she travels across Morocco on her way to Germany, to meet up with her father again. In the meantime Wiegler goes after Erik, but not before sending her hounds after Hanna, asking her main henchman Isaacs (Hollander) to do things her agency will not allow her to do. Erik and Hanna both race to reach Berlin and to keep abreast of the threat posed by Wiegler and her cronies.

Hanna starts in a stark visual landscape with no music to accompany it. Just as this silence starts to become apparent, Hanna asks Erik about music, and his response is to read the encyclopaedia entry. From here the music starts seeping into the movie as Hanna passes through the Moroccan city of Rabat, where she experiences women singing while doing laundry, and people singing while partying at night – a whole new experience opening up to her. The soundtrack by The Chemical Brothers really makes the adrenaline pump in the beautifully realised and stunningly choreographed action sequences as Hanna and Erik in separate locations take on a plethora of Wiegler’s henchmen. Every scene is interestingly done, with a Wiegler home invasion by Erik especially impressive. Saoirse Ronan is incredible as Hanna, the confused, innocent, and lethal young girl who becomes the centre of Wiegler’s world. Cate Blanchett is just as good as the obsessive and corrupt CIA agent Wiegler and Erik Bana can almost never put a foot wrong – here as Hanna’s father and protector with an undertone of violence kept in check only by a need to sufficiently care for Hanna.

Hanna is a brilliant movie, and I hope more people get to see it than its limited release in South Africa promises. Our cinema houses will do themselves a favour to push a wider release. There is art in this action movie that is rarely seen in art movies nowadays, as every frame is beautifully shot and draws the viewer into an immersive cinema experience. Hanna is the first movie I’ve enjoyed this much in a very long time.