Watch Hunger For Free

Too much of everything

That was an excellent one.

Just perfect...

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

'Hunger' is a British-Irish Historical Drama about the 1981 Irish Hunger Strike. It's a film that's tough to watch, showing prison brutality and conditions at its most absolute rawest, and it visually looks the part (age and grime and all). Being fact-based certainly lends emotions to events depicted which would be absent if it were a fictional account, but the direction here is forgettable. Too many meandering scenes of banal activities waste precious time in a picture that wouldn't make it past the hour mark had liberties not been taken on scene lengths where the camera lingers on something uninteresting for too long. We even get a man sweeping liquid down a corridor for a couple of minutes, when you get the point after 10 seconds. It serves little purpose, and the static camera-work is detriment to the cause. Steve McQueen would repeat this dull filmmaking style with 12 Years a Slave many years later. One impressive scene is when Michael Fassbender and Liam Cunningham share time together, giving us a 17 minute unbroken shot of a conversation. But that's not down to direction or cinematography, but to the credit of the actors for memorising their lines. Speaking of Fassbender, he undergoes a shocking physical transformation (clue is in the title), displaying his commitment to accurately portray and tell the story of the character. That dedication to his performance in what is really an independent piece of work is commendable, showing early on his potential as a leading man.I'm not trying to undermine the story that is the heart and core of this film, I just believe it could have been filmed much better with less tedium to keep me invested. And for that I give it 6/10.

Never have I had to turn away my eyes from a movie screen until watching Michael Fassbender deliver this Daniel Day Lewis performance and putting his own body thru a grotesque transformation. I knew he was a great actor but not till seeing him in Hunger did I see the complete commitment to character. Being an ignorant American, I know almost nothing about what happened during these tumultuous times except for what I have read myself now older (thanks school system) Watch this and think about all the men and women used as commodities in our own prison systems. I cannot compare this to In The Name Of The Father, Papilon or Midnight Express, this stands on its own. I am going to watch everything director Steven McQueen has done now. Hope the review helps.

Hunger shows us Irish Republican Army (IRA) activists, whom prisoners demand to be treated as political prisoners (their goal was to separate Northern Ireland from the UK and re-emigrate to Ireland), receiving inhuman treatment, being humiliated and having to cope with daily violence, led by Bobby Sands (Fassbender), decide to go on a hunger strike to have their orders met. Not deepening in the political aspect of the story, Steve does show the dehumanization suffered by both prisoners and prison guards, beautifully done, with incredible takes, marvelous dialogues, it's a heavy film that is not easy to digest, but it's worth it to be seen. Besides, Fassbender still delivers a performance like Christian Bale in The Machinist (2004), leaving you totally paralyzed.

Although Hunger was Steve McQueen's debut feature film, I watched Shame which was his 2nd film before Hunger. His style looked unique and brutally explicit, but at the same time delicately artistic with the right amount of reticence to challenge the viewer. I was so glad to find the same positive attributes about his directorial work in Hunger too. He is one of the most recent directors whom I can easily call an auteur due to his signature style.Like Shame, Hunger is also at times a very tough film to watch. McQueen leaves absolutely no stone unturned to depict the brutal realism connected with the subject matter. The film on the surface is about the well known IRA member Bobby Sand's revolt and the hunger strike that he declared to force the British Government to grant the demands of the IRA. But to be honest, the film has very little to do with the politics of the matter. McQueen is more concerned with the people caught in the midst of this traumatic stalemate situation. He is concerned with the psychological and of course the physical effect this situation has on these characters. I liked the fact that McQueen effectively remains unbiased and neutral throughout the whole film. This neutrality is accentuated by the fact that he uses the perspective of different people belonging to either side of the tussle in the screenplay. So not only do we get to live these traumatic days from the point of view of Bobby Sands and his fellow prisoners, but also from the point of view of prison guards and riot officers. It is shown that the ones executing the strikes might have had to endure physical pain and torture, but the ones on the other side had to endure psychological torture too as well as the lack of security in public. One of the most admirable features of Hunger is the use of silence in the film. Almost 75% of the scenes are silent or with very little dialogue. McQueen allows the visuals and facial gestures of the actors to convey a lot in many scenes in the film. The makeup of the actors and production design are also meticulous with a lot attention to detail. The prison cells look as realistic and as dirty and grim as possible. The prisoners look equally worn out due to the harsh treatments handed out to them. The makeup is so detailed that even the teeth of the prisoners look worn out and decayed.There is a famous one take conversation scene in the film that goes on for about 15 minutes. The conversation in this scene is almost as serene as a Symphony. It starts out on a light note, then becomes heavy and heated and then ends almost poetically. When a single take scene which continues for such a long while works so well, all you can do is appreciate the acting and the writing that has gone into it. Talking about acting, Michael Fassbender sets the stage on fire with a jaw dropping performance. The film's subject matter and the content being too bold for the consideration of the Academy is the only reason I can think of which can explain why Fassbender didn't get an Oscar nomination for this role. He becomes the character of Bobby Sands through absolutely brutal method acting. He is unbelievably good.Overall I loved the film. The only sort of gripe that I have is with the ending. Although I liked the ending, but I wanted it to be a bit more effective and memorable. But having said that, it is a minor gripe. Hunger is not for everyone, it is disturbing, it is visually explicit and Mcqueen demands patience and attention from the viewer. But if you are prepared for all this, then you are surely going to have a rewarding experience.