Visceral Hunger a Hypnotic Shocker
Northern Ireland, 1981. Inside the infamous Maze Prison Irish Republican Army inmates are in the midst of a blanket and no-wash protest. Officer Raymond Lohan (Stuart Graham) goes through his daily paces wearily, following his orders even though the constant grind of grime, filth and violence is starting to weigh on him.
Michael Fassbender in IFC Films' Hunger
Newly incarcerated Davey Gillen (Brian Milligan) is scared and unsure about what to expect when he’s put into his feces covered cell naked with only a single blanket. Fellow inmate Gerry Campbell (Liam McMahon) gives him the lay of the land, however, teaching him how to smuggle items and conceal messages which they in turn give to their leader Bobby Sands (Michael Fassbender) during Sunday Mass.
After a particular brutal series of events, Bobby asks Father Dominic Moran (Liam Cunningham) to meet with him at the prison. During their conversation, the IRA leader reveals his intent to start a hunger strike, all of the prisoners who agree to participate starting their fast two weeks apart so no one dies at the same time. The two debate the morals of this tactic, ultimately agreeing to disagree even if their ultimate goal for political recognition of their cause is exactly the same.
First-time writer and co-writer Steve McQueen’s Hunger was one of the most talked about films from last year you probably didn’t hear a thing about. A film festival darling and a critical sensation, there were those that felt this had the potential to garner a couple of Academy Award nominations, including maybe even ones for Best Director and Best Actor Fassbender.
None of this came to pass, of course, the movie barely even getting a qualifying release in New York and Los Angeles. Thankfully this fantastic and gritty piece of dramatic viscera is finally getting a national rollout, intelligent audiences getting their chance to see this hard-boiled epic of incarceration for themselves.
I can’t imagine they’ll be disappointed. The film is stunning. Bare, minimalist, stark and based in a hardened reality that’s as hypnotic as it is horrific, this is as gut-wrenching an exercise into documentary-like historical fiction as any I’m ever likely to see. This is a movie that rips your guts out, leaves them on the floor for you to look at and then forces you to think about the pain and suffering it took to get them there. There isn’t a false beat and or a major misstep anywhere along the way, no one leaving within this world without their faults or their shortcomings no matter what your own personal political leanings might be.
Without question there are obvious parallels here to Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib, and it’s difficult to not draw conclusions to what used to be called the War on Terror. Personally, just because that correlation exists I don’t necessarily think it is something we should spend a lot of time ruminating on. The simple fact is that McQueen has decided to show as a snapshot of a particular date and time, decided to grant a look at people and places many of have never seen before, anything else we get on top of that icing on the proverbial cake.
I won’t say I particularly enjoyed watching Hunger. The simple truth is that sitting through it was sometimes excruciating, and like 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days this film tends to be more impressive from a filmmaking perspective than it does anything else. That said, the darn thing is absolutely mesmerizing at times, moments and scenes so stuck in my memory I have trouble believing I’m going to be able shake them lose anytime soon. This is a seriously great piece of work, and even without an Oscar nod I think missing this one if you’ve got the chance to see it would be downright criminal.
Film Rating: êêê1/2 (out of 4)
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