Summary
A group of young Irish freedom fighters/terrorists commit to not washing until their demands for political status are met. After some appeasement, but not all, are made, one man commits to a hunger strike that will most likely cost him his life
The Film
Continuing down the Steve McQueen rabbit hole, I was more than a little excited for “Hunger.” I was also drawn to it by the irony of watching a film about a hunger strike at the start of a season of fasting, Lent. Even so, I was incredibly surprised to find out that “Hunger” would actually end up being one of the more spiritually moving films I have seen recently and certainly amongst McQueen’s films.
The film is broken, more or less, into two halves. The first half follows a prisoner as he is incarcerated at the Maze Prison, Northern Ireland. He, his cellmate, and the other inmates are participating in a No-Wash protest, where they refuse to clean themselves, their cells, and actively soil the cells as well. The punishments and enforced washings that they face at the hands of the British officers in the prison is brutal.
The second half of the film follows Bobby Sands (Michael Fassbender, “Shame”) as he leads the rest of the prisoners, unseen, in a Hunger Strike which will almost certainly cost at least some of them, and most assuredly of all, Bobby, their lives.
The film makes little attempt to explain the complicated history between the Britain and Northern Ireland nor does it depict the majority of the atrocities committed by both sides during The Troubles. Instead, it uses this true story as an opportunity to explore the ideas of sacrifice, pragmatism, commitment, coercion, belief, strength, and cruelty. If what you are looking for is a historical account of these events, I suggest you look elsewhere than to this film. Heck, if you are looking for dialogue between characters you should look elsewhere. Other than one lengthy scene in the middle of the film which serves as a sort of fulcrum/rosetta stone to the film, there is very little in terms of verbal back and forth to entertain the average movie goer.
McQueen opts instead to highlight the inner struggles of his characters by giving them so little to say during the typical scene of this movie. We are left with glances, looks, and slight gestures to communicate desperation, loss, and freedom. Another result of this choice is how similar the film, especially in the latter half, feels to passion movies like “The Passion of the Christ” or “The Passion of Joan of Arc.” It might have been a bold and controversial move to call this movie ‘The Passion of Bobby Sands’ but it wouldn’t be an entirely baseless idea.
I’ve heard some on other podcasts call “Hunger” torture-porn (a term used to attack films with unrelenting violence against a single person) but I have to say that I found that term to be grossly reductionistic. Sure, if you watch this movie with only one eye open, checking facebook on your phone whenever things on screen get quiet, then maybe all you would see is the violence but you would also miss the meditation underneath all the violence.
What does violence do to those who commit it? What is basic human treatment? What is my role to play in resistance? What is the meaning of sacrifice if it gains nothing? What is the role I play in the violence around me? I suppose if you think you already know the answers to these questions or aren’t open to thinking about such weighty things then this film must look like it’s just a lot of police guys beating up a lot of prisoner guys till one prisoner guy starves himself to death.
For some out there though, I think this movie has more to say about the basics of human suffering and sacrifice than almost any other film I’ve seen this year except, perhaps, “A Hidden Life” and, for those of you non-religious people out there who think I go off the deep end sometimes when it comes to spiritual films, it does so without looking to the ‘next life’ as the only answer to those questions.
Ultimately, I think this is because spirituality is rooted in the deepest human questions which are universal to the human experience regardless of era, country, gender, cause, or creed. It is how we can have so much in common despite the fact that we differ in religion, nation, and individual experiences. We are all able to ask ‘How can this be?’
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