HUNGER

Screenplay by Steve McQueen and Enda Walsh
Directed by Steve McQueen

Michael Fassbender
Liam Cunningham
Stuart Graham
Liam McMahon

Premiere date: May 15, 2008 (Cannes Film Festival)

Davey Gillen is an IRA volunteer who is sentenced to Belfast's infamous Maze prison, where he shares a cell with fellow IRA member Gerry Campbell. Like most of the IRA volunteers behind bars, Gillen and Campbell are subjected to frequent violence by the guards, who in turn live with the constant threat of assassination at the hands of Republicans during their off-hours. Campbell and Gillen are taking part in a protest in which they and their fellow IRA inmates are refusing to wear standard prison-issue uniforms as a protest against Britain's refusal to recognize them as political prisoners, a move that is complicating their efforts to pass information among the other prisoners. As the protest fails to get results, one IRA member behind bars, Bobby Sands, decides to take a different tack and begins a hunger strike, refusing to eat until Irish officials are willing to acknowledge the IRA as a legitimate political organization. However, while Sands' protest gains the attention both inside prison walls and in the international news, not everyone believes what he's doing is right, and Sands finds himself verbally sparring with a priest who questions the ethics and effectiveness of the strike.

Cannes Film Festival
Camera d'or

Best British Films: 16. Hunger

Hunger features the third incredible performance from Michael Fassbender I've seen in a matter of months. This actor is destined for big things. Here he plays Bobby Sands, a Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) volunteer leading the 1981 Irish hunger strike in an effort to win political status for Republican prisoners. The British state - represented by Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher - refused to budge until the death toll from the hunger strike climbed to 10. The film takes place in the six weeks leading up to the first death.

First-time director Steve McQueen is unrelenting in his vivid and brutal portrayal of prison conditions for these men. The men are cruelly beaten, shaved, and washed. They eat nothing and live in their own waste. Contact with their familes is brief and heavily supervised. McQueen honestly depicts this, and the resolve of these men to remain on strike despite all of these elements is overwhelming. Hunger wouldn't work without it's powerhouse cast. These men live in desperation, but not once do we sense a wavering in their dedication to fight for their rights.

Fassbender in particular shows an unbelievable commitment to the film. In his final scenes he is so excrutiatingly thin that it's hard to look at him. Bobby Sands lacked the strength to stand, to walk, and finally to breathe.

Hunger is a beautiful but merciless film about grim determination in troubled times. There's a scene in which Sands discusses the morality and potential outcomes of his hunger strike with a priest. There is a seventeen-minute single shot on the two of these men as they talk at a table. It's incredibly long, but the scene is rivetting, thanks to dialogue that's perfectly-written and revealing.

A stunning debut from director McQueen that guarantees more great things on his horizon. ****/4