-

Films that are based on a true story are supposed to educate you on the subject matter and the story that film is trying to tell. There are characters that we learn about, feel for, and that keep us engrossed in the story. Hunger is based on a true story, but does none of these things.

Hunger is the directorial debut of Steve McQueen and tells the true story of Bobby Sands and the hunger strike he builds to help regain some rights as prisoners in the Maze Prison, Northern Ireland, 1981. All of the prisoners there are kept naked in their confined cells with a cellmate. They are only given clothes to wear when they have visitors, and only blankets and loin cloths to cover themselves inside the hallways. The only hygiene they are presented with is when they are dragged out of their cell, held down on the ground and given a hair cut and shave with old scissors, then thrown in a bathtub and scrubbed with brushes. All of this, and much more, is presented vividly and rather graphic.

The first act of the film is spent with two cellmates, helping us understand what it’s like being an inmate at Maze Prison. Inside their cells, they keep left over food in a pile in the corner and let the maggots roam their cell. Also, since there is no plumbing in the cells, you can only imagine what they do as an alternative. It’s never explained why the inmates choose to live in such a disgusting way. They don’t have to paint the cell walls with their left over food and their own waste, or sleep on top of piles and piles of month old food and bugs. It would seem to me than since you’re naked and stuck in there, you’d want to make your cell as livable as possible. It is such a revolting way to spend time that it makes Shawshank Prison look like a 5-star hotel.

Bobby Sands (Michael Fassbender), our lead character, isn’t “formally” introduced until the 45-minute mark. Then at about 2/3 of the film, he has a conversation with a friendly priest that he will start a hunger strike to hopefully get the rights back as prisoners (clothes, hygiene, political rights etc). Except, this conversation is done in one 16 and a half-minute long take. It feels like you’re watching them on stage. After that conversation is dissolves to a gruesomely thin Fassbender and how he spent the rest of his days, up until his death. I’m not sure how he physically did it, but Michael Fassbender in Hunger made Christian Bale in The Machinist look like Artie Lange.

It was almost impossible to get into this film and stay engrossed by it. There was little dialogue at all throughout the movie. Everything was shown by actions and the routine of prison life. When there was talking, you couldn’t understand anything that was being said because they were either talking too low or their Irish accents were too heavy. The only conversation that really mattered was Sands’ conversation with the priest about the hunger strike he had planned, but we already knew that was going to happen anyway. There was no dialogue when Sands was literally withering away, just shots of him in bed, being carried around, and writhing in pain. A lot of the film was either too gross or too upsetting to watch.

Steve McQueen and the editors Robert M. Reitano and Florence Vinger needed to get on the same page. The 16-minute shot of mumbling dialogue was painful to sit through, as well as another shot of a guard moping the hallway where the cells were. Things like that were unnecessary. The look of the film was nice though. The colors and shadows worked very well. Even in the darkest corner of the prison cells, everything had the perfect amount of light on it.

McQueen also needs to do a better job of introducing characters. The two inmates in the beginning of film are never mentioned again. Secondary characters such as them and the priest just appear at of nowhere and disappear even faster. McQueen shouldn’t be trying to confuse anybody with this movie. If he wants us to feel for his characters, we need to know who they are first. The only historical information we were given was in title cards during the opening and closing credits. Even with that, we really had no idea what the “big picture” was about, making it really hard to be really affected by the film.

Maybe the story of Bobby Sands isn’t that important. I mean, this movie tells us his story, and between the disgusting living quarters and graphic images of Bobby before he died, there was nowhere for my attention to go. Sure, I felt bad for the prisoners and Bobby at times, but those feelings were few and far between. Hunger was a movie with potential (somewhere) that left me feeling like Bobby Sands himself: hungry for more.