Hunger

By: Martyn Pedler
Date: 3rd Nov 08
Format: Cinema
Mood: Epic

What:
Hunger

When:
Out November 6

Where:
Dendy Portside

Watch the trailer:
Here

Word association: when I say "hunger strike", do you think "brimming with cinematic possibilities"? Maybe not. Turner Prize-winning artist and first-time feature director Steve McQueen thought otherwise, and it just won him the Camera d'Or prize at Cannes. (Shows what you know, huh?)

It's easy to see why. The first half of Hunger carefully follows IRA prisoners through the abject, stomach-churning intricacies of ‘no wash' protests in Northern Ireland's Maze prison. There's barely any dialogue. There's no easy protagonist. Like United 93 - another oddly apolitical political film - Hunger strips out all the easy hooks and leaves you wandering, lost.

The film eventually settles focus on Bobby Sands, leader of the infamous 1981 hunger strike. That's when McQueen seems to get nervous, and provides long speeches and childhood flashbacks to explain Sands' motivations as he wastes away. It's still powerful; just disappointingly conventional compared to the forensic attention to detail that makes the first half of the movie so hypnotic.

Fortify yourself with this question before the lights go down: when everything has been stripped away from you, what else do you have but your hair, blood, and shit?