London born director Steve McQueen has said there were three powerful influences on his boyhood in the early 1980s: the riots in Brixton, Tottenham winning the Cup Final, and Bobby Sands.
As the IRA hunger strike progressed at Maze Prison in 1981, Bobby Sands appeared on television every night, literally wasting away. It left a lasting impression on McQueen, and for his first feature film, the Turner Award-winning artist presents Sands' story in a fashion that will scorch your eyeballs.
Hunger is both a beautiful and a terrible object. The film brings to life gruesome events in Northern Ireland, but does so in such an even-handed fashion and with such visual splendour that you can't look away.
Much as you'll want to.
Michael Fassbender stars in Hunger as Bobby Sands, but he doesn't enter the story until almost half-way through. The first section of Hunger is an introduction to life in a cell at Maze during the 'no wash' protests; as conflict increased within the prison over demands for political-prisoner status, inmates refused to leave their cells. They hoarded left-over food and smeared feces on the walls. They never washed, either, but according to the film were beaten and forced into bathtubs from time to time.
Because the movie initially unfolds from different perspectives -- both prisoner and guard -- nobody is made out to be the villain, but the violence will make you clutch your head in the dark.
The next section of the film appears simple: Bobby Sands and a priest (Liam Cunningham) talk about Sands' intention to begin a new hunger strike, this time, unto death. Their discussion is historical, political and moral and it's anything but simple, and what's more, it's all done in a single shot of about 18 minutes.
To just sit and watch, without the camera telling you what to think or feel or where to look, is an extraordinary experience.
The last section of Hunger is about the last few weeks of Sands' hunger strike, a heartbreaking visual display of broken flesh and Christ-like suffering.
Margaret Thatcher (with her terrible fake accent) is heard a few times, as if from a distant news broadcast -- just a voice explaining why the British government will never budge.
It's completely surreal.
McQueen moves his camera slowly, often stopping on the minutiae of everyday life to keep you right there in the room with him -- here a guard buttons up his crisp shirt as he dresses for work in the morning; here a medic buttons a pyjama top on Sands' wasted body.
You can keep your 3-D, thanks. We'll take McQueen's ability to fill in all the dimensions.
The movie has won numerous awards all over the world, including the Discovery Award at the Toronto International Film Festival, where it played last fall. McQueen was awarded the Golden Camera at Cannes last year.
You could view Hunger as an historical document, a philosophical argument, a political statement, a miracle of performance or an art installation.
Or all of the above.
(This film is rated 18-A)
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