Brit Art staple Steve McQueen’s directional debut, Hunger, on the 1981 Irish Hunger Strike in the Maze led by Bobby Sands, has won the Cannes Golden Camera award, BAFTA’s Most Promising Newcomer’s prize and pocketed more than 40 other wins and nominations. Not an easy bite for a Wednesday evening. But the world so obviously loves it. So I headed to Művész to see it for myself. The usual ginger-whiskey film club welcome drink (or three) would have been useful, I must admit in retrospect…
When I first read about the plot and the theme of the movie, I expected a moralizing, Republican goal straight to the net, which I wouldn’t have minded, but – oh well, I’m just gonna say it – we’ve had a few already. But I was totally wrong. To stay with the sport metaphor, Hunger was more like a goal pass. The goal itself happens inside you, later on. It’s much more painful that way…
As raw, powerful and genius as it was, Hunger was a real assault on my senses, both visually and aurally. No wonder why it brought on both disgusted walkouts and stand-up ovations at the Cannes Film Festival.
First, it throws you bang into the ocean of horrors of life in the Maze pulling no punches on the dehumanization of Irish political prisoners during the so-called Blanket and No Wash strikes. But it wasn’t only about how prison officers were treating the inmates (however, horrible and disturbing it was). The most striking for me was how they were treating themselves. Dehumanization was basically their weapon to protest; being naked in a freezing cold prison spreading their own feces on the walls of their cells.
Lifting up the weight from the audience for a while, the centerpiece of the film is a 17-minute long unbroken shot (the longest ever in feature films) of a conversation between Sands (Michael Fassbender) and his priest (Liam Cunningham). In this scene, Sands’s explaining the moral background of his hunger strike plan while the priest, more like his true friend, is desperately trying to convince him to drop the idea in order to save his life. His reasoning of the immorality of suicide is rather a desperate trick to save Sands than the usual priest-preaching. Deeply, deeply moving.
The last third thoroughly details the slow deterioration of Sands body during his 66 (!) days of starvation. Physical and brutal. Needless to use more words. It’s impossible. What I lacked, though, was depicting the mental struggle he must have gone through. (For example, when a tray of lip-smacking food arrives to his room, not prison food for sure; and he does not even have a short glimpse on it.)
So, what’s the final verdict on it? Obviously a groundbreaking piece skillfully catching a shameful moment of human history. And there’s a definite need for films like Hunger. For films that are so raw, so elementary, so physical that one feels like breathing the same air and going through the same pain. Oh, and Fassbender’s acting is golden-medalist. Just be prepared that after watching this movie, you won’t talk to anyone on your way home and for another good hour. You’ve been warned.