Hunger | Review

Mounted with deafening decibel levels of reality, the harrowing, pain-filled journey of Bobby Sands and fellow IRA prisoners (circa 1981) at the hands of boot-kicking, club beating guards of the infamous H-block of the Maze Prison will assuredly not go unnoticed. The filmic interpretation will indeed leave viewers jolted, gripped and speechless, but film connoisseurs will read Steve McQueen’s political essay has an assured directorial debut and hands down, the best British film of the year. Selected as the opening film for Cannes’ Un Certain Regard section, the film’s point of view is all encompassing one; viewers will unexpectedly walk in many character shoes. While the window into this world is a stylish one that thankfully doesn’t bring attention to itself, it is McQueen’s rendering of the script that overtly doesn’t beat around the bushes, and nor does it search to make the famed, prisoner of defiance out to be a hero, thus making Hunger everything you ever wanted in a biographical representation.

Prior to details Sands’ frame of mind, Edna Walsh and McQueen’s screenplay propose that the POV be split between those who share in the suffering – from a newly admitted inmate to the one doing the intimidating, a fellow named Raymond Lohan (played by actor Stuart Graham). Prison is a place that is sometimes referred to as the school of hard knocks, but here we might be tempted to call it the school of hard knuckles. Bones are especially brittle when naked bodies are being slammed against concrete walls and floors, and here those bruised and bloodied knuckles belong to a man whose morning ritual involves juice, coffee, comb in hair and looking underneath his car before making contact with the ignition. The first twenty minutes is a full course meal on how to describe a setting and its characters without an apparent need for dialogue. The remainder of the film rolls along in a similar fashion, working within the frame with meditative camerawork, skillfully shot selection of images and effective sound use chronicle the true events that take place both behind an outside prison bars with Sand’s skillful network of concealing and sending out information.

As a celebrated exhibition artist with an affinity towards controversial, political works in photography, McQueen demonstrates an innate talent for visually constructing the story, shots of ca-stained walls and excessive brutality are pristinely shot in 2:35 aspect ratio and slow paced, and the film’s standout sequence couldn’t be more different from the entire make-up of the rest of the film. Actors Michael Fassbender and Liam Cunningham, who play Sands and a visiting priest at the prison respectively, take part in a one take shot sequence, that is briefly interpreted by a different viewpoint, in all the shot is held somewhere close to the twenty-minute mark. With a non-moving camera aesthetic, the single frame contains a dialogue that shows a frank talk between the two men, and with this we find the actors take turns in adding weight to what is said. How rare it is to observe not one, but two cigarettes smoked down to the filter.

While putting to rest an entire set of indignations, McQueen amplifies Sand’s final act of defiance with a graphic depiction where the camera barely detracts from what a sixty-plus day starvation process looks like. Here Fassbender fastens himself to the notion that Sands used his body in protest, and thus the actor takes his performance to new heights with the kind of weight loss that explains the decomposition of a living, breathing being. While the film’s poetic touch in the closing stages might defeat the entire film’s build up, it doesn’t take away from the entire, traumatic experience. Quite simply, Hunger is an austere portrait that will leave no one indifferent, such poetry in motion packs a wallop and on occasion, will force viewers to look away. This is a praiseworthy entrance into feature filmmaking and with be annotated during award season especially on the Brit side.

Reviewed at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival (Section: Un Certain Regard)

May 15th 2008.

92 Minutes

Rating 4.5 stars