“There is no such thing as political murder, political bombing or political violence. There is only criminal murder, criminal bombing and criminal violence.”
- Margaret Thatcher, 1981
While watching imprisoned members of the IRA smear their own shit on the walls of their cells, making little dams of dried food and excrement by the door, so that their piss can trickle out of the doorway and down the prison hallway, I marvelled at the strange beauty that total pain and humiliation can have. Perhaps it’s just in the framing – director Steve McQueen being an accomplished visual artist prior to his full length debut here. There is one short scene that sticks out in my mind, where a guard sees something that just stops him for a moment, where I just felt a curious shiver of horror mixed with admiration.
Hunger makes one beg the question of what it is with the mix of religion and politics that makes people go to such ends. You can’t help to draw parallels between what went on in the Maze prison during the 80’s and what went on for years in that base in Cuba. But bearded men, extreme in their conviction of being in the right, ignoring the pain set upon them by others to renounce their belief, it’s not exactly new. Nor is one’s reluctant respect for such dedication.
Can’t imagine it’s easy for anyone from Ireland seeing this film. The decision of the Thatcher government to not grant political status to IRA prisoners led to the situation where men sat naked in their cells in isolation and just rotted away. Hunger balances between being a close observer and not taking sides. It’s a very hard balancing act, but it just barely manages. You wonder where the blame for the situation lies and no one comes out looking blameless, much to McQueen’s credit.
Another great breakthrough is Michael Fassbender as Bobby Sands, the focus of the last two thirds of the film, who has a magnetic charisma that only the potentially greatest possess. There is a scene where he is referred to as “a leader of men” and here you believe it. Bound to see very good things from this guy in the future.
Hunger is a harrowing one and a half hours that delivers a very raw sense of humanity. There are scenes of almost excruciating boredom – having a man shuffle piss down a hallway for five minutes certainly qualifies – that keep this from being anyone’s idea of an enjoyable film, but for anyone willing the film is quite an experience.
This film won a well-deserved Camera D’Or at Cannes last year. It will be exciting to see what McQueen and Fassbender do in the next few years.
Been wanting to see this, thanks for the review.
Looks like IFC Films has distribution rights here, so it’s a toss-up as to whether it will actually play in theaters here or not. The film did have an Academy-qualifying run back in December though, presumably as a way to play for NYC critics awards in advance of a release in … late March?
What the hell kind of strategy is that? I’m really getting to hate IFC.
Hard to see how this would have qualified for Academy awards. Fassbender’s is fantastic in it, but it’s in no form the kind of film that the Academy members embrace, not without some very heavy marketing behind it. That is mystifying behaviour on their part.
If it’s IFC, it should play on On Demand, if you have it.
Well, I assume they did a qualifying run not so much with the intention of getting Oscar nominations, but so that it would qualify as a 2008 release in terms of critics’ awards and top 10 lists.
IFC did the same thing last year with 4 Months… I think I’ve said this before, but they’re like the neo-Weinsteins over there, constantly jacking around with release dates, and burying movies that don’t market themselves in a way that satisfies them. In fact, since the Weinsteins have practically stopped releasing anything of interest at all, I’d say that IFC is the worst distributor out there in these terms (Sony Classics is by far the best – I’m relieved every time they pick something up, because I know it will come around in theaters).
And fuck their On Demand service – I do have On Demand, but I have plenty of other choices in theaters and to hell with them if they don’t want me to see it there. I’ll go out of my way to see good movies, but I won’t stay home.
More than likely I’m not as astute as them at the marketing game, but wouldn’t it have been better to qualify for this year and let the film build up momentum for a whole year instead of only the crowded month of December? I’m probably missing something.
Don’t quite understand why they would want a repeat of what happened to 4 Months, where it somehow just slipped through a lot of cracks. Still, it’s on place 37 on MCN’s 2008 Scorecard, so it hasn’t been completely forgotten.
Personally, I think it would have been better if they’d played up the positive notices from Cannes, and then opened it up in August or September.
Get it out there, I say. There’s a tendency – by everyone, not just IFC – to wait until after New Year’s to open films from the previous year’s Cannes. By then everyone’s forgotten about them and are focusing on the Oscars. But I daresay that Cannes has a big prestige with art house audiences here, and if you can capitalize on Cannes buzz you can do OK in terms of box office.
In fairness, I will say that IFC did OK by releasing The Wind That Shakes the Barley in March 2007 after it won the Palme d’Or in 2006. That made $1.8 million domestic, which isn’t great but it is certainly respectable. That one had a recognizable star, though.
great review.
I had a lot of similar things to say in my review from last year*.
It’s a really great film, but not an easy one. How often is the other way around though!
*http://tiny.cc/i75En
added you to my blogroll
Thanks!
Forgot to comment on this, as I saw it a couple weeks ago.
I had a few snap reactions, mostly centered on what a cruel bunch of sadists the Brits were under Thatcher. Not exclusively under Thatcher, of course, but notably so nonetheless.
It’s a very Irish movie – to the extent that it’s downright propagandistic – but like you say, it still reverberates given the events of today.
Obviously, the US has been accumulating a history of cruel sadism ourselves over the years, not just in the Bush years. I criticized IFC Films above for waiting so long to release the film here, but given Obama’s reluctance to end some Bush administration practices as quickly as he should, it feels even more timely in a way.
Incidentally, when I say it’s “propagandistic,” I don’t mean that as a criticism. I have no doubt that the film is more or less honest in its depiction of the prison. But it doesn’t really address the very real violence that the IRA perpetrated at that time, and if you didn’t know any better, you’d think that these prisoners were completely innocent. I just didn’t see it as “balanced,” which is OK, and even admirable, since the whole point is that they don’t deserve that kind of inhumane treatment no matter what they did.
As a film, it makes me want to see McQueen’s next film very badly, whatever it turns out to be. Most of the film is more or less without dialogue, and almost even lyrical in a strange way, which makes the long, unbroken dialogue scene in the middle seem very bold.
I should probably add it to my Best of 2008 list.
Really glad you liked it! I’ve found myself still processing parts of it. Fassbender really tore down the screen here. Definitely one of the best films of the year for me as well.
McQueen treads a very fine line in the film and ultimately I don’t think of it as propaganda, other than it being against torture and oppression. Thought it was pretty fair in general, the depiction not the treatment, but maybe that’s because whenever I watched the prisoners I didn’t need to be reminded of the bombings of innocent civilians. It was always in the back of my mind.
One does need to know some of the background to get a good picture of it, but I thought that long dialogue between showed that it was not all black and white. The prisoners knew what they were doing and the film indicates that they practically wanted to be treated like animals in order to prove their point.
I thought the opening scene, with the prison guard inspecting his vehicle, his wife looking on, did serve well in showing the everyday terror many British civil servants must have lived with daily during those times.
So there’s this. Looks like a worthwhile edition.