Miscellaneous Movie Musings the Sequel

[innerSpaceman]

I saw the weirdest movie over the weekend. Not a current release, but I rented it at some recommendation I now forget.

Hunger - about the IRA prison protests and hunger strikes in the 1980's. But told in a bizarro style with the strangest structure.

In case you're interested - and it is an interesting movie - I'll spoilerize the rest ... but it was so odd, I feel compelled to write about it.

Spoiler:

There's no dialogue for first half-hour of the film. It follows a grim prison officer through his daily routine at home and at work. The other officers are all chipper and talkative, and our guy is standoffish and quiet. We don't really learn anything about the prison through this, just that our guy is kinda bummed and downtrodden.

Then we are introduced to an IRA member just being admitted to the prison. It's here we start to learn of the barbaric conditions. Basically, the IRA inmates' political status has been revoked, and they are to be treated as every other convict. But having been allowed to wear their own clothes up till now, they refuse to wear prison uniforms. So, they are kept naked and are allowed just a blanket. (The background information is not relayed - - there's very little dialogue in this section of the movie either, so you either piece it together or, as in my case, research the background information for yourself).

Then this inmate is placed in a dungeon-like cell, already occupied by a guy who looks like he's been unattended for years. There are two ratty mattresses on the floor, and that's it. There's no other furniture and no toilet. Feces is smeared all over the walls, and urine just runs out under the solid dungeon cell doors to the corridor, where it is swept away in the morning.

Once a month, the guards pull the naked prisoners out of their cells to cut off their hermit hair and beards, and dunk them in a bath. This is done without the prisoners' cooperation, so it is very violent and graphic. On other occasions, the guards simply round up the prisoners to beat the crap out of them with batons and the boot.

This is all relayed with very little dialogue and with plenty of lengthy shots of oddball stuff like the pee sweeping and our inmate toying with a fly. He and his cellmate do the only talking in the film so far, and they are the only characters. The prison officer from the start of the film has disappeared completely from the narrative. But through the beatings and such, we begin to get the sense that one of the more rebellious prisoners, Bobby Sands, is becoming yet another character in the film. He is featured in a scene where his parents come to visit. He puts up a brave front, but has clearly been beat up. Then the prison officer from the start of the movie reappears during a brutal beating scene - after nearly an hour of absence - and we start to follow him for a bit.

But why? Perhaps he's going to get fed up with his complicity and turn states evidence or something. But no. He goes to visit his senile mother in a nursing home and is killed by an IRA hitman while in his mother's arms - the gunshot splattering blood and brains all over his mum, who seems oblivious to her son's murder.

Then we cut to a visit by an Irish priest to the prisoner Bobbie Sands. It is not explained why they are allowed to be alone in a room with no supervision. This is perhaps the oddest section of the film, a dialogue scene between the two men. It's a static two-shot of them at a table across from each other, with both their faces in shadow. You can't see either of them, and the shot doesn't move - so the dialogue is everything. Sands explains about his plan for the hunger strike protests - and this still shot goes on for over 20 minutes! Then it finally goes in a little tighter to the characters in a more standard back-and forth for the conclusion of the scene, another 10 minutes or so of dialogue in what has been, till now, basically a silent movie.

Even with all that talking, you don't find out much about the back-story or motivations. I had to supplement the film with some internet research to find out what the hell was going on.

And then there's no talking for the rest of the film, as it follows Sands on his hunger strike as he withers away and dies. You never see the two prisoners again who were supposedly the film's characters. Just gone from the movie. The prison officer also gone, but at least we saw him be killed. The other two prisoners are just never seen again, and with no explanation.

The scenes of Sands hunger strike are mesmerizing. There was a 10-week break in the production while actor lost like 60 pounds and went from this rather buff muscle dude to an Auschwitz impersonator. This segment of the film is really evocative and stylistic - but in a more "traditional" way than much of the rest of the movie. And the film ends with his death.


The film is striking for its uncompromising look at life in the prison. The disgusting and brutal conditions and the harrowing hunger strike are presented in a graphic style I think unparalled in prison movies. But, for me, that was all overshadowed by the bizarre structure that I'm pretty sure is unique among films I've seen.

The film I find it had most in common with, oddly enough, is 2001: A Space Odyssey - which also was a silent movie for its first and last half hours, was sparse on dialogue in between, and introduced and discarded a series of dry characters.

Hunger was directed by a guy with the unfortunate name of Steve McQueen - a big black bloke, completely his namesake in the movie biz. It's worth a viewing if you like oddball movies and want a peak into a fascinating piece of modern history - - that you'll want to google afterwards to find out what you were watching.