Director: Steve McQueen
Writers: Enda Walsh, Steve McQueen
Photography: Sean Bobbitt
Music: Lee Abrahams, David Holmes
Editor: Joe Walker
Cast: Michael Fassbender, Liam Cunningham, Brian Milligan, Stuart Graham, Liam McMahon, Helena Bereen, Helen Madden, Des McAleer
Director and cowriter Steve McQueen (not that one) took a bit of a risk with his first feature-length picture, making a “based on real events” show, which is often the kiss of death for me in Hollywood hands. McQueen solves the problems, to the extent that he does (problems of believability chiefly, but also of a sort of pious woodenness), by electing to take the story in the direction of an art film. The setting is Northern Ireland in 1981, the heart of “the Troubles,” and the prison where Irish political prisoners were housed. Labeled terrorists, often convicted of violent political crimes, as prisoners they staged no-wash and hunger strike protests.
Specifically, Hunger is about the second such protest. The first began in 1976, when the prisoners were reclassified from “prisoner of war” status to “criminal.” “No-wash” protests involved refusals to bathe and, in at least this case, smearing excrement on cell walls. Hunger strikes of course are refusals to eat. The second protest, in 1981, escalated into a mounting PR confrontation with prime minister Margaret Thatcher, doing her iron dame thing and reminding me anyway of why she was so reviled. She’s often heard in voiceover here from archival sources. In many ways she is rightly a main target of this picture.
Director and cowriter Steve McQueen (not that one) took a bit of a risk with his first feature-length picture, making a “based on real events” show, which is often the kiss of death for me in Hollywood hands. McQueen solves the problems, to the extent that he does (problems of believability chiefly, but also of a sort of pious woodenness), by electing to take the story in the direction of an art film. The setting is Northern Ireland in 1981, the heart of “the Troubles,” and the prison where Irish political prisoners were housed. Labeled terrorists, often convicted of violent political crimes, as prisoners they staged no-wash and hunger strike protests.
Specifically, Hunger is about the second such protest. The first began in 1976, when the prisoners were reclassified from “prisoner of war” status to “criminal.” “No-wash” protests involved refusals to bathe and, in at least this case, smearing excrement on cell walls. Hunger strikes of course are refusals to eat. The second protest, in 1981, escalated into a mounting PR confrontation with prime minister Margaret Thatcher, doing her iron dame thing and reminding me anyway of why she was so reviled. She’s often heard in voiceover here from archival sources. In many ways she is rightly a main target of this picture.
Though I have come to admire McQueen very much—notably the ambitious Small Axe but also 12 Years a Slave—I struggled with his first two pictures, Hunger and the 2011 Shame. I saw both of them more than 10 years ago and was hoping for a better response this time to Hunger. But alas. It is too arty for me, “almost abstracted” as one writer put it. There are long passages of minimal dialogue, with visuals such as someone squeegeeing a long, long corridor, stroke by stroke. I’m not one to impose genre rules (at least I think I’m not) but prison movies do have certain conventions that are mostly absent here. Compared, say, to the excellent A Prophet, a lot of the dangers and menace of prison and prisoner interplay just aren’t here. Maybe it’s something more sentimental and pulpy that I’m missing, and something McQueen didn’t want at all.
To be sure, these prisoners are treated horribly by prison authorities, tortured with severe beatings, wounds and lesions mostly left medically untreated (and we get a good look at them too). The cells are dark and filthy. Content warnings apply. The contempt of the authorities is palpable. McQueen has a keen eye for the British style of authoritarian brutality, as they built their empire on which the sun never set, except by 1981 and Thatcher the whole thing was crumbling (and still is, it’s only got worse). McQueen is best at portraying this, again, in Small Axe, but you can see him starting to get a bead on it here.
Michael Fassbender did the yeoman above-and-beyond actor thing for this picture and lost a tremendous amount of weight, reportedly supervised by a professional nutritionist. He doesn’t look good—in fact, I never felt like he looked even particularly recognizable. I suspect that is also due to the way his face was often shot in deep shadow. More art flourishes. Look, stipulated: Hunger is often strikingly beautiful. To me it’s natural that that would fight with prison circumstances but maybe that tension is what McQueen was looking for.
Fassbender, as Bobby Sands, emerges late from the welter of imagery, and we spend the last third of the picture watching him starve to death. As he nears death he has visions or hallucinations or memories of himself as a boy, riding his bike around. This is approximately as sentimental as McQueen is going to allow himself here and for me it never landed. It’s possible I have been corrupted by periodic fits with Hallmark Channel and Frank Capra movies. But it’s also possible McQueen is holding himself back from the real emotional touchpoints.
A core part of Hunger, arguably its very center, is a long scene with Bobby Sands and Father Dominic Moran (Liam Cunningham), having themselves a Socratic dialogue about the morality, tactics, and strategies of the Troubles. It’s a little too perfect for me—beautiful, of course, and the performances are sharp but obviously rehearsed up to the edge of over-rehearsed. The script at this point adheres closely to all the kinds of arguments we hear or have heard about protest, resistance, violence, means and ends, etc. Around here Martin Luther King and Malcolm X are often given as the poles.
I was sorry I could not get more into Hunger. McQueen is a director I have followed with interest and admiration since !2 Years a Slave. Small Axe is on my short list of the best in this century. But in Hunger I think he is working the art film formulas too hard. I’ll take that as related to it being his first feature.
To be sure, these prisoners are treated horribly by prison authorities, tortured with severe beatings, wounds and lesions mostly left medically untreated (and we get a good look at them too). The cells are dark and filthy. Content warnings apply. The contempt of the authorities is palpable. McQueen has a keen eye for the British style of authoritarian brutality, as they built their empire on which the sun never set, except by 1981 and Thatcher the whole thing was crumbling (and still is, it’s only got worse). McQueen is best at portraying this, again, in Small Axe, but you can see him starting to get a bead on it here.
Michael Fassbender did the yeoman above-and-beyond actor thing for this picture and lost a tremendous amount of weight, reportedly supervised by a professional nutritionist. He doesn’t look good—in fact, I never felt like he looked even particularly recognizable. I suspect that is also due to the way his face was often shot in deep shadow. More art flourishes. Look, stipulated: Hunger is often strikingly beautiful. To me it’s natural that that would fight with prison circumstances but maybe that tension is what McQueen was looking for.
Fassbender, as Bobby Sands, emerges late from the welter of imagery, and we spend the last third of the picture watching him starve to death. As he nears death he has visions or hallucinations or memories of himself as a boy, riding his bike around. This is approximately as sentimental as McQueen is going to allow himself here and for me it never landed. It’s possible I have been corrupted by periodic fits with Hallmark Channel and Frank Capra movies. But it’s also possible McQueen is holding himself back from the real emotional touchpoints.
A core part of Hunger, arguably its very center, is a long scene with Bobby Sands and Father Dominic Moran (Liam Cunningham), having themselves a Socratic dialogue about the morality, tactics, and strategies of the Troubles. It’s a little too perfect for me—beautiful, of course, and the performances are sharp but obviously rehearsed up to the edge of over-rehearsed. The script at this point adheres closely to all the kinds of arguments we hear or have heard about protest, resistance, violence, means and ends, etc. Around here Martin Luther King and Malcolm X are often given as the poles.
I was sorry I could not get more into Hunger. McQueen is a director I have followed with interest and admiration since !2 Years a Slave. Small Axe is on my short list of the best in this century. But in Hunger I think he is working the art film formulas too hard. I’ll take that as related to it being his first feature.
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