The movie opens with a shot of a spider lurking in the center of its web.
As indicated by the above screencap, Hannibal Rising opens with a shot of a spider in a web. Spider and weaving symbolism are explained in detail in the Dictionary of Symbols:
"The spider is regarded in the first place as a lunar manifestation, devoted to spinning and weaving. While the thread is reminiscent of that of the Fates, as the Koran emphasizes, what is woven is of extreme fragility. 'But verily, frailest of all houses surely is the house of the spider' (Koran 29:40).
"This fragility evokes the fragility of a reality which is no more than illusory and deceptive appearance."[a]
The movie's spider web symbolizes that Hannibal 'lives in a glass house', so to speak.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"The Bambara...call spiders a class of initiates who have attained 'internalization, the creative power which the individual draws from meditation and intuition'[b]."[c]
"On the other hand, this internalization, suggested by the spider lurking in the middle of its web, provides the analyst with 'an excellent symbol of introversion and Narcissism, the individual swallowed by his or her own centre' (Beaudoin)."[d]
In accordance with the above, the shot of the spider in the center of its web in Hannibal Rising symbolizes, in part, the fact that Lecter is a narcissist. This, in turn, symbolizes that the evil Jews he represents, as a group, are narcissistic.
a. Dictionary of Symbols. Ed. Jean Chevalier and Alain Gheerbrant, Trans. John Buchanan-Brown. London: Penguin Group, 1996. pp. 903-904.
b. Zahan, Dominique, La dialectique du verbe chez les Bambara, Paris and The Hague, 1963, p. 116.
c. Dictionary of Symbols, p. 905.
d. Ibid., p. 905.
