Hunger (2008)

Off sick this week I've been catching up on a couple of recorded movies. Yesterday morning I gave Steve McQueen's Hunger a go. It's quite a powerful film to watch after breakfast, with some disturbing imagery, but it was well worth it. Michael Fassbender stars as Bobby Sands, an IRA 'terrorist' who staged a 66 day long hunger strike in 1981 to protest the way that Thatcher's government wouldn't treat those arrested in Northern Ireland as political prisoners. 

Before the movie gets to Sands and his hunger strike, the scene is set through minimal dialogue and beautifully shot imagery of some pretty nasty prison conditions and behaviour. Initially the movie follows the character of Davey (Brian Milligan) who is new to prison. He refuses to wear the prison uniform and so is stripped and issued with just a blanket before being led to his cell, which his long-haired, scraggy cellmate has been smearing with excrement as a dirty protest. McQueen then shows the prisoners rebelling, by simultaneously pouring pottyfuls of piss under their doors, and the guards reacting through beatings. It is after one such beating that we are introduced to Sands, who is forciblably held down as his hair is roughly chopped off. 

McQueen doesn't shy away from showing the horrors the prisoners had to endure, nor does he excuse the behaviour that put them in prison in the first place. This is clearly depicted in the first 5 minutes as a prison guard gets ready to leave home for work, before first checking beneath his car for bombs. He is later summarily executed as he visits his elderly mother. Sands' reasoning for his hunger strike is memorably discussed in a static, 16 minute long single take, featuring him and his priest. The only movement as they sit at a prison visiting table is the patterns made by their cigarette smoke, focussing all your attention on the dialogue. The scene works wonderfully, and wordy scene presages a near-wordless final half hour as Sands endures his hunger strike. 

Michael Fassbender is harrowing in the role, and he quite clearly takes a method approach to the hunger strike as he lets himself become skin and bones. It's difficult to watch some of the scenes as Sands has his bed sores moisturised for example. The conclusion of the film is expected, but the final title cards explaining the effect of the strike are hard hitting. Hunger is a very good piece of cinema, very well shot, and it's a thought-provoking piece. I know very little about the Irish troubles, except what I've seen through films such as this really, so to me this was powerful. I don't think the movie picks sides, and I think it does a good job of showing what happened and letting the audience decided who the heroes and villains of the events were, or even if there were any.