Sacrifice In The Hunger Games

The film The Hunger Games explores numerous themes and ideas that involve poverty, wealth, power, violence, reality television, survival and sacrifice. The main focus of this essay is on two particular themes survival and sacrifice. Through looking at the mis-en-scene that has been used throughout this film, it is clear that these two themes revolve around two characters, Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark, who were both tributes from District 12. They were chosen to represent District 12 in the 74th Hunger Games.
First and foremost, the theme of sacrifice is shown at the beginning of the film when Katniss voluntarily takes her sister’s place in the 74th Hunger Games, which is a dangerous life fight. By practically doing that she reflected

They find out that they cannot survive together anymore, the rules are changed again. The Capitol had taken back their offer of district partners being able to win the Games as a pair. We see a close up shot of stunned faces of Katniss and Peeta as they realise the implications of the change in rule. The background music is mournful, this helps to set the tone for audience. Neither of them wanted to kill the other. At first we see Peeta offering his life to save Katniss when he said, ‘go ahead’ but Katniss rejected the offer, and later on they made a suicide pact. This scene shows the contrast between the manufactured love of the sponsors and the real love of true self-sacrifice. It cuts to close up scene of Katniss’s hand with poisonous berries. We see Peeta protesting but Katniss says, ‘Trust me.’ Eventually it cuts to close up shots of the producers looking shocked. The camera goes from extreme close up of berries in their hands to high angle-long shot above Peeta and Katniss and he hear disembodied voice shouting ‘Stop’. In this scene we learn two aspects of life which are; true love and trusting one another like what Peeta and Katniss did to each