Hunger (2008) User Reviews

A courageous piece of art

[warholmuse · 8/10 · 15 September 2008]

I saw Hunger at TIFF. I heard it was a hot ticket, and pre-festival buzz was good so I was elated when I got tickets. McQueen uses very little dialogue throughout the film, instead choosing to communicate through strong visuals and raw imagery. The film is less about the politics behind the IRA conflict, and more about the suffering of the prisoners and the dehumanization of them at the hands of the guards. It is not an easy film to watch. The imagery is so strong and raw that I couldn't help but grimace during some parts. The lady sitting next to me had her hands covering her face at one point, and was visibly crying. McQueen holds nothing back. The prisoners are shown smearing excrement over their cell walls and pouring their prison food over the floor until it goes bad and are covered with bugs. McQueen demonstrates the unwillingness of the prisoners to be stripped of their dignity (by conforming to prison demands), despite being stripped of everything else. There are some very long takes with no dialogue, with a particularly long one of a prisoner cleaning himself for what seemed like forever. The atmosphere in these scenes is so visceral that one can almost feel the filth and smell the stench of the prisoners. There is also one particularly brutal scene where the guards make two lines, and each nonconforming prisoner is marched through the middle while being repeatedly beaten by batons. Afterward, one of the officers walks outside and weeps. It is then that we learn to see the guards as human; perhaps even victims trapped within a conflict with no resolution in sight.

The story of Bobby Sands takes precedent about half way into the film. The most dialogue in the films occurs during the scenes between Sands and his priest. Unfortunately the Irish accents are thick, and I found the scene hard to decipher. The final scenes in the film are tough to watch as we witness Sands' slow dissent into the throes of starvation. It is hard to imagine anyone subjecting themselves to such suffering, yet 9 other prisoners followed suit. Fassbender is very good in the role; giving us a character that is unrelenting in his choices and beliefs. He genuinely believes his suffering serves a purpose, and though some may disagree with his choices, one can't help but admire his conviction.

Hunger is an artfully done film, which is no surprise considering McQueen is a visual artist. It is visually moving and challenging piece of work. It is hard to believe that it's his first feature, and easy to understand why it won the Camera d'or, and now the Discovery award at TIFF. I would have preferred a bit more back story to the conflict (I know close to nothing of its history), but then again, choosing to put more focus on politics may have taken away from other elements of the film. Lastly, I appreciate McQueen's unwillingness to take a stand on the conflict/protest in his film. He allows the viewers to make their own judgments; he's merely here to tell the story.

quietly brutal

[SnoopyStyle · 8/10 · 8 March 2015]

It's 1981. Raymond Lohan (Stuart Graham) is a guard in the Maze Prison, Northern Ireland. Davey Gillen is a new IRA prisoner who refuses to wear prison uniforms. He's put in with Gerry who has smeared the cell with his own feces. They smuggle things in and out of the prison. Bobby Sands (Michael Fassbender) leads the prisoners in a hunger strike.

It's quiet film and full of little details. It doesn't wallow in the brutality but lets it envelop the movie. There is a realism in the movie that is more powerful than any flash or action sequence. One really gets the sense of dehumanization. Dialog is sparse but there is a great discussion between Sands and Father Dominic Moran. This is quietly brutal and some great performances including Fassbender.

Visual and aural assault on the senses

[TrevorJD · 8/10 · 11 June 2008]

Sydney Film Festival 2008 – I was looking forward to seeing Hunger at the Sydney Film Festival as it had just recently won the Camera d'Or (best first feature) at Cannes. The subject matter also seemed interesting being about Bobby Sands, the IRA hunger striker who starved to death in a Northern Ireland Prison in 1981 (more prisoners died after him). What I was not expecting was the aural and visual assault on the senses that this film puts the viewer through from the opening scenes. This is a brutal, unflinching and often unnerving film to watch that concentrates on the experiences of the prisoners and guards and of course in particular Bobby Sands at the prison in Northern Ireland. To give an example, when the prisoners refuse to wash they smear excrement over the walls, refuse to wear clothes and pile their rotting food in clumps around their cell as maggots crawl out. All of this is shown with unflinching clarity. The scene where Bobby is thrown out of his cell and washed by the guards is so brutally realistic that I could almost feel the punches and bruises inflicted on his body. The assault on our senses is exacerbated by long periods of little dialog at one point followed by one long scene of continuous conversation when Bobby's priest tries to explain to him that the hunger strike he intends on undertaking will be fruitless, a scene that is filmed in one continuous shot. Actor Michael Fassbender gives an astonishing performance as Bobby Sands, particularly the scenes of him wasting away during the hunger strike. While I certainly could not say I enjoyed the film it is certainly an engrossing film and one that is not easy to forget!

Dedication

[MacAindrais · 10/10 · 24 September 2008]

Hunger (2008) ****

Bobby Sand's story has been told before on screen, but never with such raw intensity and unrelenting artistry as in Hunger. The film is directed by Turner Prize winning artist Steve McQueen. While his art has often been part of the film medium, this is his first entry into feature film-making.

The film sparked both controversy and applause at this years Cannes Film Festival, with both disgusted walkouts and rousing ovation. It the end it landed McQueen the Camera D'or.

While the film follows the final weeks of Bobby Sand's hunger strike, it is equally about recreating the atmosphere and conditions inside the infamous Long Kesh Maze Prison. Its nearly a half hour into the film before we even meet Sands, in fact. We're introduced to a prison guard, who outside nervously checks his car for bombs, quietly avoids his comrades, then becomes as vicious as any other when brutalizing the inmates. We're also first introduced to a new inmate, who, as per the IRA standard, refuses to war a uniform and instead goes simply wrapped in a blanket. He and his cellmate smear the walls of their cells in feces as part of the no wash protest.

Bobby is played by Michael Fassbender, who gives a quietly powerful performance. For the film he underwent a medically supervised crash diet, one rivaling - if not outright surpassing - that of Christian Bale in the Machinist. He moves throughout the film with a sense of determination and dedication.

It is difficult to go into any detail about plot, as the film more or less moves patiently and quietly towards the inevitable. And the key word may be quiet. McQueen claimed that he originally envisioned doing the film dialogue free. Indeed, much of Hunger is free of dialogue. However, McQueen, as he puts it, felt it would be more powerful to go from vocal silence into an avalanche of dialogue. And so the films centerpiece was born - a 20 minute stationary shot of Bobby speaking with his Priest. In a film that is filled with a dark heaviness in a cruel prison atmosphere, that meeting lifts a weight for a time, before slowly descending into a sad sense of inevitability. Though that inevitability is liberating, it is nonetheless a profoundly sad one. The film also does not shy away from the cruelty of the British towards the Irish, though it also does not deny the brutality of the IRA at times - as characterized in one shocking moment. However, anyone with any inkling of rational knowledge on the Irish struggles knows that the IRA was never simply a terrorist organization, but a rebel group that did from time to time employ terrorist tactics. Like all anti-state organizations, however, the IRA did not exist for the sake of conflict, but because of callousness and cruelty. McQueen reminds us of the cruelty and arrogance of the British particularly through the cold words of Margaret Thatcher, speaking shamelessly about Sands' strike.

There have been many fantastic films about the Irish Struggles, with some of the best coming in recent years (Ken Loach's fantastic Wind that Shakes the Barley, and Paul Greengrass's Bloody Sunday, to name two of the better). This one, I think, may be the best. At least from an artistic and purely visceral standpoint. McQueen captures his scenes in jarring compositions, with all the skill and artistic imagining of a true artist. From the opening sequences, Hunger promises something more than just the standard. Whereas most political films focus all their attention on the message, Hunger focuses on the feeling, and never strays from its artistic goals. This is art, from its opening to closing frames. It's a boldly crafted and brave film. The cinematography and direction are assured, moving slowly and unexpectedly, always beautifully even in its darkest and dirtiest moments.

I believe this truly is a great masterpiece. McQueen has proved himself as a masterful artist of film-making as well with Hunger.

Finding beauty in the horror.

[come2whereimfrom · 9/10 · 28 September 2008]

This debut from former artist turned director Steve McQueen will leave you breathless. In its own understated way it is epic, bold, brutal and beautiful. Telling the story of the last six weeks in the life of Bobby Sands the Irish republican hunger striker the film pulls no punches in showing life inside the maze prison and what the prisoners did to try and win political status. From the outset the shots are amazing with McQueen utilising his artistic eye to bring the best out of the very cold prison environment, his attention to detail is simply stunning making every single frame fantastically watchable despite the sometimes gruesome subject matter. Also his approach of less is more adds to the atmosphere as he has shots that have no sounds or music, like the guard cleaning the corridor with its fixed camera unflinching for several minutes the only sound the eerie echoing scrubbing. Unofficially split into three the first part deals with the incarceration and subsequent no wash protests while the last deals with the hunger strikes but it's the central piece that separates which most will remember for its ability to captivate despite just being a conversation between Sands and a visiting priest. Again shot from a fixed angle and superbly lit Sands (Fassbender) explains the morality behind his decision to stop eating. The acting and the monologue will stay with you long after the films finished and cements actor Fassbender firmly in the role to the point where you start to feel for him as he begins to waste away. When the film premiered at Cannes it caused walkouts and standing ovations before walking away with the Camera d'Or for best debut and rightly so, not only is it one of the best films of the year it is one of the most powerful I've seen. Regardless of where you stand politically the message is universal and just like the circle of faeces smeared on Sands cell wall, McQueen has crafted something beautiful out of something horrible.

Visually striking and inventive film that is emotionally engaging and well worth seeking out

[bob the moo · 11 January 2009]

Hunger is a low budget film from a production company more recognisable for its TV work, without any recognisable stars, without a really big distributer to get it around and directed by a Turner Prize winning visual artist making his film debut. Already you would perhaps be considering giving it a miss and maybe this isn't the best time to mention it is a largely dialogue free account of hunger-striker Bobby Sands set entirely in Northern Ireland's infamous Maze prison. This is probably one of the reasons that the film hasn't been as widely seen as it deserves to be or why audiences haven't flocked into screenings of it on a Saturday night. Certainly it is not an easy watch given the subject matter alone but yet it is a compelling and quite brilliant film.

Although the nature of the story leads the viewer to be emotionally invested in one "side" of the situation, McQueen never does anything that opens his film to this suggestion of bias or of scoring political points, if anything his attention to the detail of the tightly focused story does just the opposite. As well as telling us how many hunger strikers died, he point out how many prison guards were murdered during the period and, in my favourite part, introduces us to the prison via one guard soothing his hands (which tells us the frequency of what he does). It is a nice moment but not as telling as the thrill the viewer gets as he checks for bombs and starts his car – we are supposed to be on the edge of our seat and we are, swiftly followed by the realisation that this is an experience we would repeat if we were in his driveway the next day or the next.

From here we move into a nearly dialogue free thirty minute opening where no central character really comes forward and our "focus" is on life in the prison for guards and prisoners – a story that almost starts without there being a "story". The film later brings Bobby Sands to the fore, delivering one impressive dialogue scene before returning to a dialogue-light charting of his hunger strike on the way to the conclusion that we all know is coming. Yet it manages to be really engaging because of the level of each detail in each scene and the relevance of each scene to the overall film. The scene that has gotten all the mentions and praise is the long dialogue scene between Sands and the priest who comes to see him before his strike. Filmed in three distinct shots, the scene is technically impressive but also allows the main dialogue delivery of the film – and the only really moment where anyone is allowed to debate and discuss the actions. Even here McQueen does not allow sides to be taken but keeps it as two men talking. It is engaging, really well written and of course, really well acted.

It is ironic that in this scene the film sits still for ages and allows the frame to remain the same because for the majority of the film McQueen's camera is the star. So many shots are striking that it almost becomes "normal" to be transfixed by an image on the screen. Whether it be a excrement-smeared cell, urine flowing down a hall or a man washing blood from his hands, it looks great and the care taken to construct each image fills the "gap" that the dialogue leaves. The performances are mostly very good and compliment the "few words" approach by bringing a lot when required and wearing their characters convincingly. There are some you may recognise but I didn't. Fassbender is the most memorable as he has the biggest character and the most startling journey, but this should not take away from smaller turns from Graham, Mullen and a few others who are also good. The film is not perfect though. The uninitiated may struggle to understand the bigger picture as you don't get a lot of help with that and those that don't get into the telling initially may be left cold by the approach. However these "weaknesses" are not missed targets or failings but rather the "cons" that have to come with the overwhelming pros of the manner of delivery.

Hunger is not an easy film to watch but it is a great film. It is wonderfully shot with an artist's composure but McQueen is not a "visual style" director who doesn't come with anything else (list your own failed music video director turned film director here) but rather he uses this approach to improve the film and make the telling better. The acting is impressive because of how real they feel and how little dialogue they have across the whole film, but to me the real star was McQueen. He is a visual artist and it shows as he makes the majority of his shots striking and engaging, even if they are not "beautiful". It may get a bit more exposure due to awards chatter but even if it doesn't it is certainly worth checking out.

Pietà

[sharky_55 · 6/10 · 17 December 2016]

Consider how Steve McQueen captures a character's morning in his debut feature film Hunger. He uses extreme close-ups to gradually unveil the strict routine of getting ready to go to work. The man is silent and efficient; he tucks a napkin into the folds of his shirt like a scientist slipping into his lab coat, and observes the food as more or less one of the many requirements of the experiment. We see him silently check under his car for a bomb, and nervously glance along the empty street. A POV spies on him from behind a curtain - it's his wife, who we realise must also undergo the same agony each morning, gripping her hands tightly together as he turns the key in the ignition. He is Maze prisoner officer Raymond Lohan, who sits alone in the cafeteria and does not indulge in locker room talk. What we observe is the learned, robotic discipline of a man who cannot afford to make mistakes or become emotionally invested in his work. McQueen offers another close-up of Lohan against a mirror, a face straining in pain. And only after have we become invested into his life and curious of his struggles does the film reveal bloody knuckles, and the revelation that another person somewhere else is in much more pain than he is. By the time McQueen returns to the same sink half an hour in, our feelings and sympathies have been changed because of what we have witnessed.

For years before hitting the big screen McQueen made short films, many of which were looped as exhibits in various art galleries and museums. These roots are evident in Hunger, which eschews classical narrative and storytelling and instead opts to wade into the vague and often ill-defined territory of art film, preferring enduring images over explanations. Much of the first half of the film is filled with moments that could define it: the camera swooping over the sh*t-stained walls and finally descending onto the dishevelled figure of Bobby Sands, the slow, silent burn of a hallway leaking puddles of the protester's urine, the way the world slows down as a wall separates the beatings and a lone, sobbing prison guard, singled out for his youth and naivety. It's brutal, senseless violence, as evidenced by the wall of sound and pain that the prisoners are marshalled through, or the way water droplets hit the face of the lens as they are forcibly bathed. But as much as McQueen strives for realism with his hand-held and guttural sound design, he can't help but aestheticise until it's not merely tragedy, but grandiose tragedy. Sands has had plenty of time, and turned his own faeces into a swirling piece of art. A hole in the cell window grating allows a shaft of white light to peek through, and a prisoner marvels at a fly that crawls upon his fingertips, not merely an insect but a symbolic representation of the freedom he craves. The treatment of the final days of the martyr Sands outdoes all these.

The most discussed segment of the film are the two unbroken shots of the conversation between Fassbender and Cunningham, and for good reason. Like the better cinematic priests (think Brendan Gleeson in Cavalry, or any of the religious figures in Doubt), Cunningham is inserted not as a moraliser but as his own character, able to understand the complexity of the situation and offer his own perspective. Before they descend into rhetoric they engage in small talk, as Moran teases (he doesn't object to the sacrilege of the bible for a smoke either), and McQueen is able to make us understand that this is a routine they have endured before, and that through the seventeen minutes they always come to the same impasse. Moran sympathises and does not simply condone; although Catholic doctrine states that suicide is a sin, he is more interested in Sands' end goals and well-being. Forget the eternal suffering of your soul, what about your physical body and mind now? The pair are so well-versed in the exchange that they are on the verge of cutting each other off and jumping to the next line, or at least Cunningham's Moran is, sensing that his time is running out to save this man's life. Although much has been said about the symbolic meaning behind Sands' story, the visible result is that it paints him as a man of utmost conviction, able to shoulder the burden and responsibility of darker deeds for the greater good of others.

But a story simply isn't enough. There is a lot more context here, and the film deliberately avoids engaging with the historical and political baggage of the situation, diminishing it to personal struggle. It depicts the increasingly fragile state of Sands' body, dissolving untouched meal trays onto each other, shoving the camera up close and asking us to cringe and avoid averting our eyes. McQueen doesn't filter Sands' last stand through the lens of a wider protest, or evoke the desperation of a group of men resorting to their remaining weapon, but reduces it to body horror, and renders the iconic visage of Sands into a withered metaphor for determination and conviction. Fassbender may be good at this, but he lacks the symbolic connection to the thirty thousand Irish residents who voted him into the Fermanagh and South Tyrone parliamentary seat during the hunger strike, so he's merely a physical body in decay. Not that this deters McQueen, however. In his close he all but denounces the stylistic precedent already established, and resorts to burying Sands in myth, superimposing flights of birds over his body, and bathing him in angelic light to transform his plight into rapturous martyrdom. No doubt Cool Hand Luke and Michelangelo's Pietà were consulted. And finally McQueen stumbles clumsily into formalism, revealing a younger Sands surveying the piety of the almost deceased older Sands, yet it almost seems to be a look of pity.

Powerful

[sambrinks · 10/10 · 20 May 2008]

The movie is a timely piece of film-making in this era of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay. I have to admit my prejudice for the film because of my past as one of the prisoners depicted in the film. Long Kesh – or the Maze as the British infamously renamed it – was the Abu Ghraib of its day. One stark difference though: unlike Abu Ghraib, no one has ever been charged with the horror and relentless torture inflicted upon naked, defenceless prisoners in Long Kesh. The film is uncompromising in its examination of the events leading up to and beyond the Hunger Strike. Michael Fassbender is frighteningly real. But I will leave it up to the words of Peter Bradshaw in the Guardian to sum it up: 'Hunger is raw, powerful film-making and an urgent reminder of this uniquely ugly, tragic and dysfunctional period in British and Irish history…'

Raw but overdramatic and forced

[adamonIMDb · 6/10 · 10 June 2017]

'Hunger' is a brutal film, at times even difficult to watch. For a lesser-known film with a modest budget, it is put together relatively well, providing a very raw account of the 1981 Irish republican hunger strikes. The film contains minimal dialogue and extended scenes of suffering, which I thought were unnecessarily long and felt forced.

The atmosphere throughout the whole film is unnerving and makes for uncomfortable viewing. My main criticism would be the lack of background given to the events in the film - those who aren't familiar with the hunger strikes won't learn much as the majority of the film simply focuses on the suffering of the characters rather than their political motivation.

'Hunger' is a well-made but flawed film. It would have been much better had it concentrated more on telling the story of the hunger strikes rather than trying to shock the viewer with extended scenes of suffering.

Visceral

[Instantdeath · 9/10 · 5 November 2008]

Believe it or not my path only crossed with this film on a rainy day when Quantom of Solace was sold out at the multiplex. I was aware of the historical background to the Northern Irish Troubles and the notorious Maze prison, the last thing i was wanted to see on screen was a glorified Republican political point scoring exercise. Many newspapers and MPs had been jumping on the possibility of the film being portrayed as pro IRA. I can say now with confidence that they're assumptions could not be more wrong. Hunger, is a brutal, graphic and pragmatic interpretation of what the last 6 weeks for Bobby Sands were like, frankly, a desperate decision that led to a slow and painful death, all in aid of the cause.

My two favourite parts of this film, has to be priest trying to give mass and Bobby Sands conversation with the priest and my total surprise at the dialogue between characters. I was waiting the prisoners to settle down and soak up religion, in addition when Sands stated his intention to hunger strike, i expected the priest to bombard him with sentiment and morality. What we get instead is a perfect example of how far the conflict had become removed from freverent religious belief and proliferation of beliefs, the film focuses on the sole fact that it has come a war of extermination, the exact beginnings of which have long been forgotten in the mess and carnage of Republican and Loyalist campaigns.

With the conversation with the Father Moran, i found myself identifying with his character, trying his hardest to persuade a friend from taking his life, only using morality as his last strand of defence. He states all thing unseen consequences to a immovable Bobby Sands; radicalisation of the movement, the recruitment of the loyalist paramilitaries, throwing Northern Ireland into more years of bloodshed basically Sands was lighting the touch paper because he was disillusioned with the leadership, and I have to agree with Moran's characters conclusion that it was ego driving Sands on.

I left the cinema numb, unfeeling and depressed. It was a representation of a human beings last resort for rights or recognition. I would not consider this film to be pro anything, I consider it to be a realist interpretation of the last weeks of Bobby Sands.

Aesthetically but boring

[vintkd · 6/10 · 27 May 2012]

I opened for myself director Steve McQueen after his famous "Shame" that really impressed me. I've hoped that his debut "Hunger" will be more impressed me, but it's not happened, but though I liked this movie. In my glance, its main disadvantage is slowness, there is stylish picture, amazing actors but i fought with sleep in watching, maybe because I'm very big fan "Midnight Express" by Alan Parker or maybe I'm just slept not enough. I very liked astonishing dialog between Liam Cunningham and Michael Fassbender, it was really emotionally and touching. I like McQueen's directing style, but in my opinion, in this movie is not enough dramatic tension and action, i don't need action movie, special effects and explosions here, i just need engrossing history, which I not saw here, unfortunately. I'm absolutely not regret that I watched "Hunger", but to re-watch its I won't exactly.

Provocative, vivid and engrossing, but at times it gets close to hagiography

[Robert_Woodward · 8/10 · 15 November 2008]

Hunger is a powerful and disturbing feature-film debut for the visual artist Steve McQueen. The film takes place almost exclusively within the confines of a high-security prison in Northern Ireland, where many members of the Irish Republican Army are interned. The small confines of the prison serve as a microcosm of the wider Troubles in Ireland. The conflict between the British wardens and the Irish inmates escalates steadily, with each indignity and abuse inevitably leading to another.

The conditions revealed in the prison are deeply disturbing, with the inmates fouling the jail with effluent and the guards responding with ritual humiliation and savage beatings. McQueen's camera is an unflinching witness to the squalor and cruelty, and with the vivid imagery and forceful sounds it is almost possible to smell and feel the frightening environs of the film.

Although the focus of the film ultimately falls on Bobby Sands, the IRA member and inmate who leads a fatal hunger strike within the prison, we are not introduced to the main protagonist until a third of the way through the film. This approach works remarkably well in setting the scene for the main narrative, but it is disappointing that the different perspectives on each side are somewhat sidelined thereafter, as Sands's personal struggle takes centre stage.

The terrible squalor of the prison cells provides some of the film's most powerful images, but it is the second third of the film that is the most gripping, as Sands converses and argues with a visiting Catholic priest. An unmoving camera is trained upon these two protagonists for what must be nearly half an hour, as Sands reveals his plan for a new hunger strike and defends his methods of achieving political goals, ultimately berating what he sees as the priest's despondency and inertia. This is an utterly compelling piece of cinema.

However, at the end of this gripping conversation, the director sees fit to insert a somewhat tortured analogy as Sands recalls for the priest a defining moment of his boyhood. This is an unnecessary effort to inject conventional beauty into Sands's story, and sits awkwardly with the general tone of the film.

In the final third of the film, the hunger strike is depicted in by now characteristically brutal detail. Lead man Michael Fassbender clearly underwent a very painful regime to portray the wasting and withering of Bobby Sands in his last days. Unfortunately, amidst the impressive attention to detail, McQueen goes further in romanticising his main protagonist through a series of flashbacks to Sands's childhood. This again jars with the realistic feel of the rest of the film, and points to McQueen's obsession with Sands, which he has admitted to having had since a young age.

Although at times steering a little close to hagiography, McQueen's directorial debut is still a bold and engrossing film that cultivates an understanding for the very different people caught in up in the Troubles in Northern Ireland. It will be fascinating to see what his next project will be.

Cinematically stunning, aesthetically flawed

[jaibo · 7/10 · 6 November 2008]

Steve McQueen's debut film, concerning the 1981 hunger strike by IRA inmates at the Maze prison, is both a cinematic triumph and an aesthetic mess. The film offers the viewer some of the most extraordinary images in modern film-making, some incredibly intense scenes, startling and entirely committed performances and daring shots to die for; on the other hand, the narrative is a complete mess, without proper focus and therefore devoid of meaning, and style of the film is a mish-mash of techniques none of which are consistently used, again this mitigates against meaning.

Take the narrative: we begin with a prison guard, and follow a sequence beginning with him soaking his blooded fist and ending with an explanation (which we guessed anyway) of how he got his fist in that state; then we follow a new prisoner as he is inducted into the cell and at the same time the ongoing dirty protest. We get an impressionistic portrait of life in the prison, with concentration flitting between the prisoners (their daily routine, their methods of communicating with the outside world) and the guards (our original protagonist ends up being murdered whilst visiting his mother in an old people's home). Only about a third of the way in does Bobby Sands become our focusing figure, with concentration settling on him once he has decided to begin the hunger strike, this time determined to take it all the way to death. There's a long, static conversation between him and the priest, beginning with an unbroken 10 minute medium shot of the two talking (neither moves from his position, physically nor dramatically) which then slides into a close-up of Sands giving an extremely articulate reminiscing speech about the time he put a foal out of its misery on a cross country run, a metaphor for his current decision. This archly theatrical sequence stands out like a sore thumb in the film, justifying itself by its daring and concentration yet having little aesthetically to do with the rest of the film's style. After this, the film concentrates entirely on Sands' self-imposed martyrdom, relentlessly following his gradual wasting unto death. In this final section, we get impressionistic point of view shots from inside the mind of the dying man as well as romanticised flashback memories of his youth. Whilst none of this adds up to anything like a coherent experience, it does have considerable impact on the viewer - you feel at the end as if you've been through something, even though I would defy anyone to know what it all adds up to.

Many of the images (immaculately shot in scope) are indelible: the sh*t-smeared walls, with the camera spiralling in as on a mandala; the urine slowly leaking from the cells at slop-out into an empty prison corridor; a prisoner putting his fist through a break in his window bars (shades here of Genet's Un Chant D'Amour), the blanket swathed bodies of the otherwise naked men congregating around an altar where a priest drones on unheeded as they gossip; the senile mother of the guard drenched in her son's blood. Most memorable of all is the sore-covered and emaciated body of Sands in his wasting period - Hunger follows Richard Hamilton's painting The Citizen and Terry George's film Some Mother's Son in bringing out the Christ-like aspects of the prisoner's look (and sacrifice), but takes the imagery to new levels of intensity referencing Matthias Grünewald's shocking portrait of the Crucified Christ in the Isenheim Altarpiece.

Sands consciously compares himself to Christ in his conversation with the priest, and the film's structure does something to agree with him. Where one pierces the skin of a story is always a telling decision, and the fact that McQueen and his co-writer begin with the dirty protest rather than the crimes which put these men in prison in the first place is revealing of their commitments - although why begin with their crimes and not the crimes of house burning and civilian massacre which inspired the IRA campaign in the first place? There is always going to be contention in a story like this, and the filmmakers are perhaps to be applauded for making a decision to concentrate on the H-block experience and stay there (although the Sands flashbacks are artistically dubious).

Hunger, then, is an extremely mixed bag - not entirely one feels the work of a filmmaker in complete control of his material (although his camera always does what he wishes it to do). One is left, though, with a pretty extraordinary contribution to British cinema (usually so safe and bland and unnecessary) and a vision of what is a pretty squalid episode in British history, in which there was a stinking corner of the land governed by Queen and Westminster parliament in which men pushed their bodies to the extremes of human suffering through their criminal reaction to the crimes which had been perpetrated by the establishment on their people.

Slow, visual, graphical and a little boring.

[Rumified · 5/10 · 7 March 2010]

I wasn't sure what I was getting into when I first pop it in my DVD player. It takes over 40 mins to see some action pick up. Well, actually, they do have some action moments, but they are brief. It's rather slow, and it revolves around 2 males in a very gross cell with poop smear all over the walls for the most part.

Towards the end the story focuses on the main story point, a man going on strike by not eating, hence the title. This man, which I believe should have been the main focus from the start wasn't. You see him here and there throughout the movie but you don't see him as a main character, let alone the lead, or in this case, the whole reason behind the strike and the movie.

It isn't until the scene of him speaking with a Priest in the meeting room that his plan is heard, and the climax of the movie. Sadly, it's wayyy towards the end. Even after that, it's just graphical with how his body changes due to lack of food. The first 2 males in the cell that you spent 40 something mins looking at, are not seen or heard of again, which makes me wonder, why did the movie revolve around them for the most part instead of the main character, the one going on strike?

The movie seems to lack direction, and at the end you are left with a sense of 'wtf did I just saw? @___@'. Watch if you want to, if I were you I would just skip it and watch something better.

Traumatic

[markgorman · 9/10 · 24 November 2008]

1981.

The H block in Belfast's Maze Prison.

This film captures the development and escalation of protest by the 'political' prisoners held here as things moved through 'The 'Blanket protest' onto 'The Dirty Protest" and finally to 'The Hunger Strikes' that claimed Bobby Sands and eight of his compatriot's lives.

As the end credits of the film show, the enemy, in the form of Margaret Thatcher was 'not for turning' and did not grant political status to these men that she considered no more than murderers. They did, however, lead to many concessions - bit by bit.

This astounding movie falls into three very clear sections; the gut wrenching blanket and dirty protest; a long and deeply personal conversation (in one 20 minute take) between Sands and his priest where Sands is asked to justify and then walk away from the impending hunger strike; and finally Sands' ordeal itself.

Each section has a different pace and personality. Each is desperate in its own way.

This film pulls few punches. The stench of human excrement is almost palpable in the opening act and the way in which Michael Fassbender brings Sands' death to the screen is almost unbearable.

But the real triumph of the film is that it takes no political sides and makes no judgements but does not sit on the fence. How? Because it invokes the viewer to do that themselves. Sands is neither a figure to pity or to vilify. It really is quite remarkable that the artist Steve McQueen can achieve this so consistently.

And this is art with a capital A. Every scene is stunningly rendered. The pace, at times snail-like, allows you consider in real detail the situation these men found themselves in (or created however you want to look at it).

Fassbender's performance is miraculous.

McQueen though, is the star of the show. One scene in particular when the men slop out by pouring their night's urine under the doors of the corridor simultaneously is quite beautiful, as is the Hirst-like art that some of them create from their excrement (that's what makes up the poster image).

Film of the year. No contest.

Incidentally we saw it in the DCA's Cinema 2. What a cracking screen.

(As we scoffed coffee and fudge doughnuts. How's that for irony?)

A powerful and relevant look at recent British history

[Chris Knipp · 10/10 · 25 September 2008]

Steve McQueen, a noted young British artist, has made a powerful first film about the Irish prisoners in H-Block of Maze Prison, Northern Ireland, and the hunger strike and death of Bobby Sands in 1981. The images are searing, both horrible and beautiful (McQueen is aware from Goya that images of war can be both), and much of the film is non-verbal, but the action is broken up by a centerpiece tour-de-force debate between Sands (Michael Fassbender) and Father Dominic Moran (Liam Cunningham) that is as intensely verbal as the rest is wordless. In Irish playwright Enda Walsh's rapid-fire dialogue quips are exchanged, then passionate declarations, in a duel that's like a killer tennis match: watching, we listen, and the camera, hitherto ceaselessly in motion, becomes still. Hunger, with its rich language, intense images, and devastating story, is surely one of the best English-language of the year, and it understandably won the Camera d'Or at Cannes for the best first film. Like the American Julian Schnabel, Steve McQueen is another visual artist who has turned out to be an astonishingly good filmmaker.

Faithful to the physical details of the H-blocks and the treatment of the prisoners, the film is still honed down to essentials and includes a series of sequences so intense it may take viewers a long time to digest them. As the film opens, an officer of the prison, Raymond Lohan (Stuart Graham), follows his normal routine. His knuckles are bloody and painful; later we learn why. His wife brings him sausage, rasher, and eggs.

Davey Gillen (Brian Milligan) a young Irish republican prisoner, tall, gaunt, and Christ-like, is brought into the prison. He refuses to wear the prison uniform, so, joining the Blanket protest, he's put in with fellow "non-conforming" prisoner Gerry Campbell (Liam McMahon) in a cell whose walls are smeared with feces. Those of us who were around when these events happened (Steve McQueen was 12, and remembers the coverage), remember them so well we could have seen these walls. Campbell shows Gillen hot to receive "comms" (communications) from visitors and pass them to their leader Bobby Sands at Sunday mass.

When prisoners agree to wear civilian garments, they're mocked by the "clown clothes" they're handed out and riot, screaming and yelling and tearing up everything in their cells. They also periodically collect their urine and pour it under their cell doors out into the prison hallway where the guards must walk. The result is a brutal punishment by the prison in which the prisoners are taken out to the hallway and beaten naked by a gauntlet of police in riot gear. An eventual repercussion is that Raymond Lohan is shot dead while visiting his catatonic mother in a home.

A poetic flourish of the meeting between Sands and Father Moran is Sands's story of going to the country as a Belfast boy on the cross country team and going down to a woods and a stream where he is the only one who dares to put a dying foal out of its misery by drowning it. The images this tale evoke become the objective correlative of Bobby's last thoughts when he is dying in the prison hospital.

The central issue was being treated as political prisoners. From 1972, paramilitary prisoners had held some of the rights of prisoners of war. This ended in March 1976 and the republican prisoners were sent to the new Maze Prison and its "H-blocks" near Belfast. Special Category Status for prisoners convicted of terrorist crimes was abolished by the English government. Hunger doesn't focus on ideology or public policy, other than to have the voice of Margaret Thatcher, in several orotund declarations, adamantly denying the validity of the republicans' cause or status. The Sands-Moran debate is more about feelings and tactics.

Another powerful contrast comes when Sand goes on the hunger strike and is taken to the clean, quiet setting of the hospital where he is lovingly cared for and visited by a good friend and his parents, who're even allowed to sleep there during his last days. Sands' condition is dramatic, heightened by horrible sores, and a report to his parents of the rapid damage to internal organs and heart that his fast will cause.

It was McQueen's decision to eschew a screenwriter in favor of a playwright for the script, and his choice of his near-contemporary Enda Walsh, an Irishman resident in London, was a wise one. McQueen determined the structure and inspired the paring down. Walsh makes the central verbal scene sing. Its intensity is such that it has no trouble at all competing with the harsh prison scenes. It is brilliant stroke. Great theater you could say, but the film's contribution is to make the whole train of events alive and human at a time when they are acutely relevant to the post 9/11 world of Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib.

Shown at Cannes, Telluride, and Toronto, included in the New York Film Festival 2008.

Propaganda

[stpejo · 25 October 2008]

Why is it that every film about the troubles in N.Ireland have a distinct rep/nat slant and passed off as fact.

McQueen had an excellent chance to show all the world the true consequences of terrorism and the effects it has on those who get involved or are victims of terrorists.

I find it amazing that no one was interested in aftermath of the brutal murder of the prison officer,a room full of people witness a man getting his brains blow out all over his mother and that is left as a foot note, why? Does anyone care about horror the IRA put people in N.Ireland through and Sands being a member of the IRA was an intricate part of that horror and blood shed..

The prison officers were portrayed as being inhuman,that makes it easier for people to accept the barbaric way the man was murdered, it means we do not have to question the actions that put the prisoners in the Maze in the first place. Demonise one side as McQueen has done and you get fiction not fact, show the horrors of one side and we still get fiction and many see it as fact.

The film is full of symbolic rhetoric, Sands reference to the fields of barley, linking the present time Ireland with the time portrayed in the film the Fields of Barley, and the Easter uprising.

Sands use of starving himself to death and becoming a false martyr he was no Gandhi as he was using his death to bring more onto the streets of N.Ireland to kill and maim. Gandhi used his hunger strike to end violence.

We have with the bloodied blanket scene a reference to the Shroud of Turin or it seems to be, now Sands is being Christ like in his sacrifice, on thing is that Christ died for us all not a section of a divided country.

This film will bring joy to those who do not understand N.Ireland and amazement to those who do, when a director has the guts to take an honest warts and all look at the "troubles" then we may all get an idea of the truth and that one side is not the inhuman with the other being the victim.

In this respect all McQueen achieved was a film which like all films has to be taken for what it is, a story with events that could have happened.

Just a foot note in history, the RIRA was created by Sands brother in-law, they still try to bring violence onto the streets of N.Ireland.

Gruesome in the beginning, then long Dramatic dialog in the middle then back to shocking and sad ..

[Aktham_Tashtush · 7/10 · 25 December 2018]

From Hunger to 12 Years a Slave it took Steve McQueen 3 movies to make his name in Hollywood ,, through movies of suffering and injustice ,, just wow !! and the amount of dedication by Michael Fassbender was unimaginable..

The story itself reflect its reality upon the events and just leave us shocked ,, the script was somewhat good ,, the start was as i said gruesome and so shocking to a point where its unwatchable ,, then comes the dialog between "Bobby" and "Father Dominic" , ease things up ,, but intensify the drama ,, then at the end it goes back to the suffering part.

The cast was unbelievably amazing , from Michael Fassbender to Stuart Graham, the two actors in the beginning ,, they all did very well.

Recommended.

a moral film, bleak but affirming, and featuring a brave debut from a director and a powerhouse of an actor

[Quinoa1984 · 9/10 · 11 February 2010]

Bobby Sands (Michael Fassbender) did something that was a risk, one that would have made others squirm or back out. He was in prison already for four or more years, as a leader in the IRA in Ireland, when he decided to go on a hunger strike. Not just him, mind you, but others along with him, who would all go hungry and, more than possibly, put their bodies on the line for the sake of their brothers in the war, until Britain did something. But the brilliance of Hunger is that director Steve McQueen (not to be confused with the action star) gives us a very straightforward (shockingly so) view of the conditions at the prison, the cell-block where IRA members were put in cells, inhumanely in fact, with feces commonly strewn on the walls and prisoners regularly beaten by SWAT teams and prison guards in general... then, after a very long scene of talk where Sands hears his own plan in front of a priest, the hunger strike in action. It's unrelenting cinema.

It's also sometimes a bit much to take in. You have to know this is not at all melodramatic, but done with little dialog, sometimes in just a few words or whispers (a female narrator pops up once or twice to put things into a sort of context), and compositions that bring out claustrophobia and the endless time spent in the prison. One might wonder why McQueen chooses to keep a shot going for so long on something as trivial, or just routine, as a guard cleaning up the urine left by all the prisoners in the hallways (all in one shot), but it's about that really: the routine of a horrible process of living, of 'us' and 'them' between the prisoners and the guards in this Northern Ireland prison, with Sands as a sort of unofficial leader inside. The length of shots, and the moments where characters burst out in anger and rage, are deliberate and dramatic and powerful.

If I had any problem with Hunger, it's that it is misleading in its first half hour. We're given two prisoners, not Sands, and a prison guard, and we're shown the horrid conditions of living in a solitary-confined prison (feces on the wall, anyone?). But Bobby Sands, the main character, isn't introduced for quite a while. It's an outstanding scene when he is introduced, kicking and pounding and getting beaten down as his hair and beard are cut, yet by then it's been perhaps too long to get to this point. It's also jarring how McQueen structures his film it terms of silent and sound: there's a fifteen minute stretch (almost all in one two-shot) where there's nothing but dialog between Sands and the priest (albeit a riveting conversation about sacrifice and humanity), but aside from this it's all just watching first the IRA members in the horror of prison conditions, and second Sands in his deterioration of the hunger strike.

And yet it is a powerful experience and a stunning debut. It reminds me a little like The Machinist in observing its lead character fade away, literally, before our eyes, only here the stakes are far greater than a tricky neo-noir plot. Fassbender is also mesmerizing for any given moment he's on screen. And yet as great as the film ultimately may be, or is, I don't have a desire to watch it again. It's about as bleak as a rainy day in Dublin - I mean a real rainy day. You won't feel good when the movie ends, but you'll know you have seen the emergence of a filmmaker with something to say, and an actor who will go to the limits, much like Christian Bale, for the sake of the character's importance in the story. Frankly, it rarely gets more dramatic and life-or-death than Bobby Sands.

Gritty film

[billcr12 · 7/10 · 28 March 2012]

Hunger is based on the IRA volunteer Bobby Sands, who went on a hunger strike to protest the oppression by the British government. Michael Fassbender is the Irish rebel who is brutally beaten by prison guards and decides to fight back by a hunger strike.

A prolonged scene shows Bobby meeting with a Catholic priest to discuss the morality of starving himself to death for a greater cause. The padre, of course, considers the action to be suicide, which is forbidden by the Church of Rome as a mortal sin which condemns the soul to the eternal fires of hell. The martyr disagrees and will become famous world wide for his a Timon's.

Fassbinder is totally believable as Sands but this film is so damn depressing that I have trouble recommending it. Well made by director McQueen but mentally exhausting; proceed at your own risk.

The brutal life in the Maze Prison

[freemantle_uk · 9/10 · 6 March 2010]

Before Steve McQueen came along, artists turned directors trended to be awful at the job like Tracy Emin (but she has always been an awful artist). But since Steve McQueen there is hope that artists can be good storytellers, with Sam Taylor-Wood also gaining critical success with Nowhere Boy. Here Steve McQueen shows his skill with a brutal tale about the Maze Prison and the political protests IRA prisoners undertook.

In the early 1980s terrorist prisoners in Northern Ireland had their rights as political prisoners removed and IRA prisoners protest by refusing to wear prison uniforms, thereby ending up being nude, and smearing their own feces. Prison guards have to use violence even to clean prisoners and clean their cells. One prisoner, Bobby Sands (Michael Fassbender) who suffers from the violence goes on a hunger strike to force the British government to give in to his demands. He would go on it by himself and was willing to die for his cause. To ensure that this wasn't a pointless sacrifice other IRA men would take his place other he died. As the strike continues Sands' health quickly deteriorates, with the British government standing strong against him.

McQueen shows his skills very quickly, showing the brutal nature of live and showing the dirty live of the prison cells. It is grim but effective and you get the feel of what that live was like. He also shows his ambition, with lots of wide, continuous shots throughout, the main one being when Sands speaks with a priest (Liam Cunningham) about the morality of going on hunger strike. This almost felt like a stage play. McQueen also shows his artist flair with some of the shots, but most of the time keeps the film grounded to real life.

Surprisingly McQueen shows a more balanced picture, showing a prison officer Lohan (Stuart Graham) is a human being, having to protect himself from IRA attacks, and having his wife worry for his life. But McQueen could have shown more, like terrorist attacks conducted by the IRA or British reprisals against them. I am personally a big critic of the IRA, seeing them as no more then terrorist targeting innocent civilians and now really just a criminal organisation. But despite my prejudices I was still gripped by the film, it was not Anglophobic or pro-Nationalist. An interesting parallel with today is with American treatment of Al-Qaida prisoners, where the Republicans and the Right in America want to strip them of their rights, torture them and lock them up indefinitely, whilst the Democrats want to treat them as what there really are, criminals and should have criminal trials. When it comes to fighting terrorism we need to show that we are better then sinking to their level. The film skips over the fact that Bobby Sands won an election to be an MP whilst on hunger strike.

The acting is excellent, particularly from Michael Fassbender who is quickly emerging as a massive hot prospect. He is my second choice to replace Daniel Craig, just after Matthew MacFadyen. Liam Cunningham and Stuart Graham are also worthy of note.

This is a very good film, and an excellent debut by Steve McQueen.

History with the story safely removed

[David_Frames · 7/10 · 20 October 2008]

When a film is introduced to you as important your first instinct should be to ask, 'to whom?' The answer, in the case of the artist Steve McQueen's debut, is to the filmmaker - but the audience? That's more problematic. McQueen's exactitude in recreating the horror within the Maize prison – the barbaric and often mindless tussle between Republican prisoners and the Queen's screws, is total. It's a brutal document told in long takes, still close-ups and punctuated with occasional narration from Mrs Thatcher, whose cold and unflinching assessment, though grossly hypocritical ,"There is no such thing as political murder, there is only criminal murder", is mischievously juxtaposed with the dehumanising spectacle informed by that piece of political positioning. The devil though, is as always in the detail, though in this case it would be better to say that it lies in the devil's advocate. McQueen's assertion is that this is reportage, veritie, not myth making, but he should know better, and in fact does, because the details as presented are his details, so should the occasional moment of Christ like iconography slip through, benignly written off by the director as something he was unaware of ("honest to God"), we might infer that McQueen indulged himself and has chosen the path of least controversy – plausible deniability.

It's a curious picture as it's ostensibly a political film, though in fact, appears benign in this respect. McQueen's own political position is as effusive throughout as a viable solution must have been to the protagonists. Ultimately this becomes frustrating because it's a subject matter that demands closer examination of the contexts. Hunger provides the reality, occasionally overlaid with artistic overindulgence, but bubble wraps it – it's polemically inert, which is welcome in documentary but disappointing in a piece of pure cinema. It's also frustrating self-conscious, going out of its way to subvert convention (long takes, little or no score, sparse dialogue, careful composition) but in doing so safety adhering to those associated with art house movies. It strives to be taken seriously and although its impact is undeniable, its lack of political heft is unforgivable, making it a far less brave piece of work than its makers imagine it to be.

One of the most beautiful and innovative films I've seen in years

[nekoudacreative · 10/10 · 8 October 2013]

This is a really amazing story told in a new kind of cinematic style that is powerful and requires few words at all to convey the depth and breadth of ideas and emotions. It has some weird plot shifts in that it follows one set of protagonists and then shifts to the Bobby Sands character but it didn't bother me at all because you come to realize that all of the prisoners in the story are essentially interchangeable and that in fact in a different country, under different political conditions "it could be you or me."

The hieroglyphic storytelling is so masterful, the director can create an entire turn of a phrase in a single shot just with a simple shallow rack focus.

Performances are stunning and require a lot of self-sacrifice on the part of the actors. Over all it is one of the most beautiful (in all its nightmareishness) and innovative films I have seen in many years.

Michael FasTbender Goes All In

[view_and_review · 6/10 · 21 February 2022]

I have very little knowledge of the struggles of Northern Ireland in 1980 and "Hunger" didn't inform much. What it did show was Northern Irish prisoners practicing a form of rebellion in prison that amounted to not wearing clothes, smearing their cells with feces, and pouring their urine into the jail corridors. I know the protest had to be more than that, but I'm merely reporting what the movie showed us.

The protest graduated to a hunger strike which, from the little dialog, was their second hunger strike. This one was led by Bobby Sands (Michael Fassbender). We wouldn't see Bobby Sands until thirty minutes into the movie. We don't hear any dialog until fifteen minutes into the movie. "Hunger" relied largely upon imagery. Personally, I like a blend of imagery and dialog with more of the latter than the former. Imagery works best once a premise has been established by the dialog, it is not as effective to establish the premise.

"Hunger" is probably best viewed by those familiar with the Northern Ireland struggle. If you're like me, then you will garner a small bit of the meaning of their fight and lot of the personal sacrifice made by Bobby Sands.

Try again, please.

[rushhire · 2/10 · 19 December 2008]

It is a story that needs to be told, but there needs to be more too it. They need to tell what happened before and after this, and during, in other places, beside that lame prison.

There just wasn't enough substance. The guy swept the water in the hall for 3 minutes. And there where a lot of things like that just to fill up the time.

I can only give it a 2. Please try again. Don't fill the thing up with a lot of long dramatic still shots of things we see every day. It's just too boring. If you believe in it, do it right, and make it interesting.