This historically fictionalized film is based on an account of Bobby Sands (Michael Fassbender), the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) volunteer who led the 1981 Irish hunger strike and participated in the no wash protest in which Republican prisoners tried to regain political status. It dramatizes events in the Maze prison in the period leading up to the hunger strike. The film is intensely moving.
First time British director Steve McQueen drops us, without landing gear, in the midst of vicious brutality. Without prior investment we are situated within the detainment facility as a bystander to the beatings and mistreatment of malnourished prisoners. The violence was realistically conveyed in a slightly more appropriate manor than, say, Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom.
This is not a black and white depiction of history, nor is it manipulative. The answers we are looking for are never revealed but instead we are dealt, incidentally, a mixed bag of emotions. A seventeen minute, single shot take tells us that there are two very different opinions on this social incident, leading down two very different paths of righteousness. Sands believes that he is doing the right thing, the human thing. During this scene he converses with a priest about the finality of this unfortunate circumstance and, as the priest tries to convince him of giving in to save his life, Sands never gives it any thought. With a firm belief in all things just and virtuous in the world he is willing to do anything to make a difference. This may be the most challenging scene in the film.
First time British director Steve McQueen drops us, without landing gear, in the midst of vicious brutality. Without prior investment we are situated within the detainment facility as a bystander to the beatings and mistreatment of malnourished prisoners. The violence was realistically conveyed in a slightly more appropriate manor than, say, Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom.
This is not a black and white depiction of history, nor is it manipulative. The answers we are looking for are never revealed but instead we are dealt, incidentally, a mixed bag of emotions. A seventeen minute, single shot take tells us that there are two very different opinions on this social incident, leading down two very different paths of righteousness. Sands believes that he is doing the right thing, the human thing. During this scene he converses with a priest about the finality of this unfortunate circumstance and, as the priest tries to convince him of giving in to save his life, Sands never gives it any thought. With a firm belief in all things just and virtuous in the world he is willing to do anything to make a difference. This may be the most challenging scene in the film.
I was awe-struck throughout, not only by its masterful photography but also the desolation of the setting and the loneliness amidst the unsettling courage of Sands. To say Fassbender did what he could for the film would be an understatement. His physical performance was phenomenal, certainly the role of a lifetime and one that will stick with his audience for ages.
I was initially interested in Hunger because I wanted to know why and how this happened. McQueen does an excellent job at presenting those questions in an analytical sense, much like the famed Austrian director Michael Haneke and his unflinching masterpiece The Seventh Continent. Both films are similar in more ways than one—placing the physicality of the acting above all else, relying on long takes for symbolic interpretation and systematically studying a historical tragedy.
Hunger is a masterpiece of the 21st century and I hope to see much more from Steve McQueen in the near future.