SummaryHunger follows life in the Maze Prison, Northern Ireland, with an interpretation of the highly emotive events surrounding the 1981 IRA Hunger Strike led by Bobby Sands. With an epic eye for detail, the film provides a timely exploration of what happens when body and mind are pushed to the uttermost limit. (IFC Films)
SummaryHunger follows life in the Maze Prison, Northern Ireland, with an interpretation of the highly emotive events surrounding the 1981 IRA Hunger Strike led by Bobby Sands. With an epic eye for detail, the film provides a timely exploration of what happens when body and mind are pushed to the uttermost limit. (IFC Films)
Hunger is a mesmerizing 96 minutes of cinema, one of the truly extraordinary filmmaking debuts of recent years. It's also an uneasy, unsettling experience and is meant to be.
I would never know about the “Irish Hunger Strike” in 1981. The terms “The Maze” or “The Troubles” would have been unknown to me if I didn’t see the movie. For 38 years there had been many conflicts between the British and the Irish in the Northern Ireland since 1960. These conflicts are widely known as "The troubles". And "The Maze" is a prison situated in the Northern Ireland, where Irish paramilitary agitators were kept imprisoned. The prisoners started "Blanket" and "No Wash" movement as the political status of those prisoners had been revoked. For these agitations they are brutally tortured by the British Government. But never gave up. Their leader Bobby Sands (Fassbender) started "The Hunger Strike" willing to accept the consequence of this deadly strike!
Prison officer Remond Lohan cannot recognize himself in the mirror. The bruises on his wrists are humiliating him in every second. He is looking around for any rioter nervously. He is searching underneath his car if it is booby-trapped. That worried face of his wife says it all how a day of a prison Maze officer is elapsed. They have to be something else for doing what they do. They are not proud of what they do. They pretend to be happy and normal with their chitchat and jokes, but they are not.
The script which is based on a true story is co-written by Enda Walsh and Steve McQueen. I liked the story very very much. As director Steve did a great job. He was as precise as possible. He never tried to overstate or understate things. The screenplay is simply artistic. The cinematography is also commendable.
For me the is the best work of Fassbender. He pushed his limit for this work. His sacrifice and hard work for this movie is exemplary. Every artist did a fine job with their character.
Many renowned critics praised this movie and had it on their top 10 lists in the year 2008. But the movie is not as popular as it should have been. But the movie is not as popular as it should have been. It is because of its slow story development. But if someone starts to watch the movie for a while he will find himself lost in the movie. So the viewer should be patient and matured enough to understand the depth and appeal of the story.
The Verdict: I simply cannot express the caliber of this masterpiece in words. But I tell you this, if you want to know about devotion, about freedom, about sacrifice, watch this movie.
Reviewer Rating: 5/5
Harrowing, irreverent, fearless, virtuosic, inimitable, beautiful, unforgettable. Steve McQueen shows himself a true artist; in the hands of a more experienced director, this could have been a film with more technical proficiency and a screenplay that obeyed the traditional laws of character arc and continuity, and as such, would have been another above-average movie about the Irish Troubles to throw on the pile. Cheers to McQueen for having the balls to make the movie he wanted. It's great.
The fulcrum of this deeply humanist work is an extended two-shot of the strike's leader, Bobby Sands (Michael Fassbender), as he converses with a priest (Liam Cunningham); the virtuosic sequence encapsulates the whole sorry history of a horrific civil war.
Boys a dear! This is definitely not the right time to watch such a gut-wrenching, brutal film. The combination of harrowing imagery with sounds that penetrate the senses is really something that creeps under your skin to send quivers through your soul: it's specially made to make you feel what the characters feel. Honestly, I feel sick! That said, I think people really don't do this film justice by only praising its idiosyncratic direction style and Michael Fassbender's achingly astounding performance (only God knows how he didn't get an Oscar nod). Because what strikes me the most is how brilliantly structured this film is. The first act may be a bit longer than it should, and some of the attempts to strike an emotional chord amidst the sheer rawness and grittiness didn't pay off as they were intended to; but I couldn't help feeling that the transition from an act to another was just perfect: every act ends and paves the way for the next at the perfect time. We get to see what deprivation do to humans but in a most abstract way at the first act, we get to know that sacrificing for the others (by self-deprivation) could be the only proper way of rebellion at the second act and then we feel deprivation and suffer so badly with only the feeling of a martyr to compensate for all the pain. This is a directorial debut that only a true artist can make!
(9/10)
the reason why cinema exists..
Hunger
Hunger is a character driven biographical drama depicting the inner Irish prison world through various perspectives. Let's acknowledge the elephant in the room, it's not an easy tale to listen to. The meddled and explore subjects in here are not for everyone, it personifies the harrowing nightmares of each individual characters to a point where you start cringing on your seat. Amidst all these negative emotions, there resides a beautiful poem within it, which McQueen extracts out and paints this stunning craft through it. There aren't much verbal sparrings (and when there is, it leaves you mesmerized as it reeks of the old theatre acts to the core) in here, it is all acted out, it relies completely upon physical sequences and proves the explicit writing it contains. McQueen's world in here is "black and white", "0 and 1" and, purely opinionated where there is no room for "if's" and "but's", there is no diplomatic version that comes out of it. Its sinistes background score, the metaphorical cinematography and fine editing along with few jaw dropping shots that is a tale of its own, makes this feature rich on such technical aspects. Fassbender makes you writhe on screen with his majestic performance and flaunts his unflinching potential to carry it off such a craft all on his shoulder. McQueen triumphs on originality of the structure of the script, it is dark opera house that is equally glorifying as much as sharp it is. If it's heinous then it's because of the accuracy, if it's inedible then it's because of the honesty and if it's beautiful then it's because of the innocence. Eye popping art designing, poetic and jagged screenplay, McQueen's gut wrenching shots and Fassbender at the heart of it are the high points of the feature. Hunger is a rare art that analysis the allegory with heart wide open and points out the reason why cinema exists.
With "Hunger" - the harrowing vision of 1981 prisoner protests in Northern Ireland - Steve McQueen reminds us that art isn't confined to elegance and beauty, but can be as brutal and revealing as the darkest of reality. That being said, the movie is difficult to watch at times, but then again the questions it raises are even more difficult to answer - How far can a person push their limits through shear determination? If there is a God, how would he judge this self-deprecation for a greater good? Rather than trying to preach us an answer to these, the movie simply shows the events as they unfolded, all through a stunningly provocative camera lens.
1981, HM Maze. IRA inmates refuse to wear prison stripes, starting a protest to attain political prisoner status. When it fails, one, Bobby Sands (Fassbender), begins a hunger strike. But is it suicide or martyrdom?
What is the grimmest movie ever? Bergman’s Cries And Whispers? Aronofsky’s Requiem For A Dream? Wayans’ White Chicks? Maybe, but you would be hard-pressed to find a film bleaker than Hunger, artist Steve McQueen’s debut feature detailing the starvation strikes in the Maze prison that resulted in the death of Bobby Sands in 1981 (SPOILER!) .Yet this unrelenting darkness should not be held against it. For Hunger is a powerful, difficult piece that announces McQueen as a singular talent, and Michael Fassbender as an actor of note.
This is as far from bog-standard docudrama as you can get. In the early sections, as McQueen intercuts prison officer Raymond Lohan (Stuart Graham)’s routine and inmates Davey Gillen (Brian Milligan) and Gerry Campbell (Liam McMahon) taking part in a blanket protest, the filmmaking is strangely beautiful and technically stunning. Cells covered in muck are vividly evoked, Sean Bobbitt’s camera lingering over swirly patterns of **** McQueen punctures the languorous artsy feel with visceral handheld violence when Sands is brutally forced to cut his hair. Later, a shot of a prison guard mopping a urine-filled corridor literally lasts minutes.
The effect of this is to make Hunger’s central set-piece all the more startling. Around halfway through, McQueen gets to grips with the issues in a 22-minute locked-off camera shot in which Sands reveals his plan to go on hunger strike to Father Moran (Liam Cunningham), with both debating the merits and ethics of the protest. Despite bravura performances from both actors, the static camera, rather than funnelling your focus, feels distancing, creating a barrier to the ideas and emotions.
On the other side of this talk marathon, McQueen doesn’t shy away from the minutiae of Sands’ starvation, focusing on the bedsores and the prisoner’s withering frame. Some of McQueen’s lapses into religious symbolism towards the end undo the oblique approach of the first third. But, just as Hunger offers no easy pleasures, it offers no simple analysis, and delivers a gruelling, compelling experience. One you probably won’t want to go through again.
Anchored by Fassbenders turn, Hunger is as much about the personal as the political. The real breakthrough, though, is McQueen, who turns in a film that dazzles and challenges in equal measure.
Production Company
Film4,
Channel Four Film,
Northern Ireland Screen,
Broadcasting Commission of Ireland,
Wales Creative IP Fund,
Blast! Films,
Sound & Vision Broadcasting Funding Scheme