Hunger – Artistic Review of 2008 Film
Steve McQueen & Michael Fassbender fly the Flag for British Film Art
Oct 19, 2009
Set in 1981 during Margaret Thatcher’s uncompromising government, and focussing on the IRA’s violent political protest against British rule, Hunger is a gritty portrayal of the dehumanising treatment that IRA terrorists were given.
At root McQueen's success is down to the fact that Hunger is both unsettling and unique. Aesthetically gut-wrenching, there is barely any dialogue. Accused of being a “self-congratulatory art project”, McQueen refuses to follow the initial protagonist’s story through as well as refraining from making moral or political judgements. For an in depth synopsis, see Gareth Harding’s article.
Fassbender and Cunningham Shine in Hunger's Seventeen Minute Scene
The biggest talking point about the film is the seventeen minute unbroken dialogue between Bobby Sands and Father Dom Moran with one unmoving camera. Michael Fassbender, most famed for his line “Then we will fight in the shade!” in the Graphic Novel film, 300, faces off against Liam Cunningham. The actors move in and out of the light conversing about their childhoods, upbringing and the hunger strike Sands is starting. It is at this point that Sands shows how he sees the false bravado of those leaders who simply talk, but in reality are clueless. He concludes, “I will act.”
Located centrally to the film, Sands’ protest begins after two acts of brutality, one from either side of the political row. Amongst this climactic violence sympathy is completely upended. First, the political activists are humiliated by being dragged out of their cells and beaten by a riot squad with truncheons. A lone riot squad officer cries as he hears the beating from the next room. The next scene, however, disallows any sympathy to be built up as a prison warden, who comes as close to a protagonist at this point as anyone, is shot while visiting his catatonic mother. McQueen makes clear that both are deeply in the wrong.
From this high point of violence, quiet descends, and Sands addresses his priest. Sands stands for what he believes in, saying, “Putting my life on the line, it’s not just the only thing I can do, it’s the right thing.” He speaks powerfully and rhetorically against the priest who realises his role is simply as “sounding board.” This scene has been widely praised for its originality and comes as the pinnacle of the film’s drama. It is a turning point and an important confessional scene, similar to the confessional scene in David Lynch’s The Straight Story, just before the climax.
How McQueen Used Sound and Vision to win the Camera D'Or
McQueen uses minimalism to emphasise the importance of every detail. Apart from the key dialogue scene central to the film, there is minimal dialogue throughout the rest of the film. The silence turns the film into an exploration of non-verbal communication, echoing Sands' preference for the power of action over words. The result of so little talking is that every scene is made weightier and every gesture heightened. Even the movement of an eye becomes more noticeable as the active audience member seeks something to attach significance to. Sound is used impressively with the intimidating beating of shields by the riot squad and the fluttering of birds taking flight, which when coupled with a scene of Sands writhing in internal pain, create an unsettling empathy in the audience.
The detail employed by McQueen extends to the visual realm particularly. Referencing classic images of the sacrificial messianic figure, the Turin shroud and, more obliquely, Kafka’s The Hunger Artist, McQueen is aware of many connotations that will be brought to the film. He even references the popular British actor of the same name and his 1973 Papillon.
Visually, the most striking effects are the disturbing portrayal of the two strikes: firstly, the no-wash strike; and secondly, the climactic hunger strike. The first involves keeping leftovers of food, and spreading faeces around the cell walls. Some of the prisoners draw pictures– a face and a cross can be clearly seen on separate occasions. The enduring image is one of circles being washed from the wall, ripples beginning at the centre and spreading outwards. This image, poignantly drawn in the material symbolising protest at their degradation is incredibly powerful, even as it is being washed away.
Fassbender Starved Himself
McQueen returns to silence as he documents the shocking wasting away of Sands, for which Fassbender had to starve himself. The doctor looks on in helpless terror as he watches his patient refuse food. For the audience, this is a gripping and gruesome climax. In a scene of final defiance, a nurse loyal to the UDA refuses to help Sands as he lifts himself from a bath and collapses in weakness.
Hunger is not a light-hearted film to watch and the violent brutality of both human cruelty and bodily functions throughout cuts against more mainstream violence which can leave an audience desensitised. There is no such clouding of judgement here. Hunger does not pull any punches.
 |
