Hunger - Review

Turner Prize winner Steve McQueen is perhaps one of Britain's most significant artists. He is best known for his work using film, yet Hunger is his first feature film. It is an exploration of life inside the notorious Maze prison near Lisburn, Northern Ireland, in 1981. The experiences of both the paramilitary inmates and the guards are examined, as well as the events up to and including the Bobby Sands-led hunger strikes. McQueen has directed and co-written what is an extraordinary technical and artistic achievement.

After a quiet opening depicting the monotony of a prison guard's life we meet Davey Gillen (Brian Milligan), a new prisoner in the H-Blocks. He begins his sentence at the height of the Blanket and No Wash Protests. The prisoners wanted recognition as political prisoners which would include, among other demands, the right to wear their own clothes. They refused to wear prisoner's clothes and so wore their blankets. They refused to wash or empty their chamber pots. Thus as Gillen is thrown into his cell we see the faeces that is pasted across every inch of his new home. As his cellmate Gerry Campbell (Liam McMahon) demonstrates to him, and us, how to achieve this level of filth, the stench practically fills the cinema.

The film progresses and we follow Gillen through his education at the Maze, the beatings and the humiliation as well as the drastic steps to communicate with the outside world. We also see the experiences of the prison guards. Raymond Lohan (Stuart Graham) is shown as he checks for bombs beneath his car before driving to work. Later an officer weeps uncontrollably as his colleagues in full riot gear mercilessly beat the inmates. It is a desperate and terrible place for everyone within the prison walls.

Sides are not taken and the prisoners are not glorified as martyrs. The reality of the situation is shown unflinchingly. There is no sentimentality; emotions are reined in with just one brief use of music. McQueen does not force sympathy from us. He forcefully confronts us with bleak historical truth that we must consider for ourselves.

McQueen's approach is distilled quite expertly during one 22-minute single take. Having been introduced to Jimmy Sands (Michael Fassbender), we watch as he meets Fr Dominic Moran (Liam Cunningham) to discuss the hunger strike he is about to embark upon. The camera is still, watching the two men as they sit facing each other playing verbal chess for the very highest stakes. The script, by McQueen and playwright Enda Walsh, is almost entirely played out here; the rest of the film has little dialogue. As Fr Moran and Sands sit down to talk, the work done by both actors and writers is worthy of every superlative you can throw at it. Like viewing a great painting I stared at the screen, utterly captivated by the back and forth of the two men. Fassbender embodies Bobby Sands's incredible strength of will and sense of purpose. Doubts flicker through his speech though, as the Republican priest repeatedly questions Sands's motivations and the effect his death will have. The scene is an amazing technical achievement but it never feels epic or grand. It remains simply a conversation, a long, engrossing and important conversation, but a conversation none the less.

The final act of the film is almost entirely dialogue-free. This is the total physical breakdown of a human being. Objects shift in and out of focus while sounds are muffled and inaudible. The shots of Sands's chillingly emaciated body are neither gratuitous nor sensationalist. They are put on screen in an attempt to convey in some way what he went through. As with much of the film the starvation is very difficult to watch, though there is something fascinating about seeing this alien shape as it struggles to move its very eyelids. The end we know from the start, but when it comes the inevitable is still expressed in an interesting and provocative manner.

The only criticism I can offer is that the film provides little explanation of the circumstances leading up to the protest, the acts of the prisoners that led to their imprisonment or the effects of the hunger strikes themselves. Yet in truth it doesn't need this explanation. It is a meditation on the hunger strike and the experience of those in the prisons, as well as a wider look at the question of what it means to truly die for a cause.

In a week when the latest James Bond film is released, there is little question of which film is the better, worthier or more accomplished. Bond is violence glamourised, digitised and belittled - packaged to sell a plethora of products. Hunger is violence at its most brutal, pain at its most visceral and suffering at its most real. I can only urge you to go see this quite brilliant piece of work. It isn't an easy film to watch and it's difficult even to call it rewarding. It is, however, a powerful and tremendously important piece of filmmaking.