Hunger: Movie Review

Hunger: Movie Review

Rating 7/10
Cast: Michael Fassbender, Liam Cunningham
Director: Steve McQueen
A film about the treatment of IRA prisoners during the 1980s was never going to be an easy watch.
But that's an understatement for Hunger , the story of IRA prisoner Bobby Sands.
I don't recall the last time I felt quite so uncomfortable during a visit to the cinema - or so brutalized by what I was watching.
This is an account of IRA prisoner Bobby Sands and his decision to go on hunger strike while in Her Majesty's Maze Prison near Belfast - known as H Block prison.
But you don't get to see the central character until a little way into the film.
It begins with a prison officer getting ready for work - his routine consists of checking under the car before starting it in case of a car bomb.
The scene then switches to H Block where a new inmate is being brought in - and in accordance with the blanket protest and no wash policy of prisoners, he's put in a cell.
But the minute he's in there, the truly horrific conditions within are revealed - with faeces smeared over all the walls, piles of rotting food and flies, this is really not the ideal conditions for anyone who wants to keep their sanity.
Within 10 minutes of this stunning film from Steve McQueen, it's clear the brutality on the screen is going to have a lasting effect on its viewers.
Rows of guards beat the naked prisoners as they run a gauntlet from one end to another; when officers forcibly wash the prisoners, it's a violent confrontation with scissors and one which leaves each prisoner with whelks and bloody sores.
It's at this point we're first introduced to Bobby Sands - and within minutes, it becomes clear his mind is made up - and the endgame is set in motion.
Sands' decision to initiate a hunger strike involving some 70 men in the prison is the centerpiece of this film - its centerpiece is a 24 minute, single camera shot with Bobby Sands debating his reasons with a Father Dominic Moran.
This scene, while intensely high in the philosophical stakes, also has its humour - albeit of the darkest kind.
It's also the scene which really shows off Fassbender's intensity as Bobby Sands; you really get to understand the motivation and reasoning for the strike - all of that comes on top of the daily brutal conditions the prisoners live in.
It's at this point the film really ramps up the discomfort as Sands begins his strike.
He lasted 66 days in real life - and Fassbender himself underwent a 10 week controlled fast to achieve the shocking physical effects of a hunger strike on the human body.
His emaciated, sore riddled body will stun you and make you squirm in your seat - as well as making you respect how far people will go for their beliefs.
Hunger is a film about the psychological and physical lengths some will go to when a conflict becomes so deadlocked and neither side is willing to compromise or concede.

Ultimately though it's deeply uncomfortable viewing in parts, shocking and stunning in equal measures; this film will haunt you for long after you've seen it.