|
Hunger review
:. Director: Steve McQueen
:. Starring: Michael Fassbender, Stuart Graham
:. Running Time: 1:36
:. Year: 2008
:. Country: UK
|
Deeply moving, experimental and almost dialogue-free, Hunger chronicles IRA detainees who, led by Bobby Sands, tried to win political prisoner status in 1981 through a no wash protest and hunger strike. The daily life of prisoners and the guards is shown in the Northern Ireland prison in the six weeks leading up to Sands' death
The tension in the prison is palpable and bloody, while outbursts of violence are more frequent than dialogue. Scenes of prison resistance are not for the easily squeamish. Prisoners refuse to wear prison uniforms or bathe and smear their feces on cell walls, living in abominable conditions and of course provoking the prison staff. They are naked and filthy, a sharp contrast to the meticulous uniforms of the guards.
Prison guard Raymond Lohan (Stuart Graham) wordlessly soaks his bloodied and torn knuckles in hot water in one moment and snow melts on them in the next-we quickly understand his brutal world inside the prison and his need to check his car for bombs when outside.
In one of several scenes of prison beatings, the noise of the prisoners being clubbed conveys how unbearable conditions were both physically and psychologically. We watch as they are beaten in a long sequence, and the faint moment of humanity is when we witness a young prison guard on the other side of a wall with tears streaming down his face. Not everyone agreed, and the complexity of this situation was not all black and white.
Bobby Sands (Michael Fassbender) is the soul and political heart and focus of the film. In one of the only scenes with dialogue, we observe his rationalization for going on a hunger strike and willingness to die to gain political prisoner status. His debate with a Roman Catholic priest (Liam Cunningham) over the morality of a hunger strike is remarkable both in content and form. As the priest tries to convince him that a hunger strike is pointless, Sands articulates a message so clear (even if one doesn't agree) in his fight for the imprisoned to be recognized as political prisoners and not terrorists. His strategy is this: instead of several going on hunger strike at the same time, he would initiate a chain of hunger strikes with one prisoner joining every two weeks. These two static scenes shot in one take only propel his message forward.
In the second half of the film we watch Bobby Sands become Christ-like as his body begins to break down from starvation. McQueen is masterful in directing these quiet scenes of enormous human suffering. It's heartbreaking to watch a prison doctor try to ease his pain when at a certain point even covering him with a sheet proves unbearable, both for the character and the audience. Fassbender's preparation and work for this role shows in every frame of the film, and his ability to bring the audience into his suffering is rare in that it's not merely ramping up the drama for a statuette.
When Bobby Sands is shrouded in white at the end of the film, the parallel is unmistakable and yet McQueen takes care to not make him an immediate martyr. While certain parallels to Guantanamo Bay are inevitable for a US audience, obviously this isn't the most commercially viable film. McQueen's direction is tight and the visual artist has managed to put art where we rarely see it; in a highly charged political situation where the politics have largely been removed.
Anji Milanovic
 Movie Reviews: British Films
Movie Reviews: from 1998 to 2011
Reviews since 2012
|
|
