Hunger

Steve McQueen, UK, Ireland, 2008, 96 minutes

Both immensely beautiful and deeply disturbing, Hunger recounts the last days of republican activist Bobby Sands (Michael Fassbender) during his fatal hunger strike in Northern Ireland’s Maze Prison in 1981. ’Iron Lady’ Thatcher’s right wing government refuses to grant political prisoners their legally protected status and instead resorts on the path of violence and fear. Clothing of inmates with mere blankets and performing body searches with the help of fully-armed riot police forces are actions intended to silence the resistance for good.

First time feature film director, video artist Steve McQueen (Not the guy from Bullitt) brings to light the dark events of recent British history the only way possible: Letting the pictures and multiple viewpoints speak for themselves. The winner of Camera d’Or in Cannes 2008, Hunger’s scenes take full control and refuse to let go. McQueen’s collaboration with screenwriter Enda Walsh bears fruit in a carefully balanced story which grasps the overlapping complicated morals of the human body becoming the battleground of the mind, the record-breaking 17,5 minute single shot of Sands and Father Moran debating the former’s conviction to die for a cause as the front runner.

Hunger’s power lies in the skin contact it established with all sides of the conflict. It lives not just along Sands and his fellow fighters but also with guards, polices and their families trying to manage the unsatisfying today in the hope of a brighter tomorrow. In the extreme conditions of the Maze’s H-Block, there is no right or wrong. There are only deeds following orders, external or internal. A prison guard leaning the the prison war and smoking a cigarette with blood in his knuckles. A new inmate caressing a fly sitting on the window bars in the cold sunrise. Barely conscious Sands weakening hour after hour on his hospital bed, refusing to eat against his own well-being.

All this and much more Hunger presents with shots so mesmerizing you may need assistance to lift you of the bench afterwards. In case this should happen, Film Society is happy to be of help. As the most important film of 2008, nothing less should be expected from Hunger.

Review by Jutta Sarhimaa
Written for EUFS Programme Spring 2009