Hunger is a film dedicated to the struggle of IRA activist Bobby Sands, who embarked on a deadly hunger strike in the 1980s to gain political prisoner status. His struggle was followed around the world, and caused a public outcry when he died after 60 days of fasting, without Margaret Thatcher having reacted. Steve McQueen’s film Hunger, which won a Caméra d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival, presents this struggle, which led to Bobby Sands’ death as a true Republican martyr.
Northern Ireland, 1981. Raymond Lohan is one of his supervisors at Maze Prison, which is responsible for guarding an H Quarter where IRA members are incarcerated. The latter have launched the “Blanket and No-Wash Protest” to assert their status as political prisoners. The latter refuse to wear prison uniforms, and live naked, wrapped in a simple blanket. The latter are also on a hygiene strike, smearing the walls of their cells with their excrement, refusing to wash, and flooding the penitentiary corridors with their urine every day.
Tensions soon erupted into a full-blown riot when the Maze penitentiary management suggested that inmates wear civilian clothes. The prison brought in a strong army to quell the prisoners’ rebellion.
After violent clashes, warden Raymond Lohan was shot in the head outside the prison by non-imprisoned IRA members.
After this most unacceptable incident, Bobby Sands, one of the IRA’s leading activists, decided to meet the prison priest and tell him that he wished to go on hunger strike. A conversation ensues between the 2 men: the priest disapproves, while Bobby Sands is adamant.
His message was clear: he wanted to go on hunger strike, in order to reach out to international opinion and get Margaret Thatcher to make a gesture. His aim was simple: he wanted all IRA prisoners to be considered political prisoners from now on… and to achieve this, he was prepared to go all the way, even if it meant letting himself die, with the help of other comrades who, like him, would go on strike. With each death, a new one takes its place: such is the strategy for finally making your voice heard.
The film’s final act is one of its most harrowing, as we watch Sands’ hunger strike over the course of several days, his pain and weight loss, and the physical impact of his fasting. All until his death… without the British government making itself heard.
Steve McQueen’s decision to tackle one of the most painful subjects in Northern Ireland’s history is a welcome one. While we still deplore the lack of films dealing with the Anglo-Irish conflict, Steve McQueen pulls out all the stops by presenting us with the struggle of one of the leading figures of the Republican struggle in Northern Ireland: Bobby Sands.
To achieve this, Steve McQueen articulates his film in 3 acts, and paints a chilling portrait of the prison world of these QHS Blocks, where IRA activists were imprisoned.
Very quickly, and insidiously, Steve McQueen takes the viewer completely hostage: we immediately feel like one of the Block’s prisoners, living in misery and cold, bathed in the odors of urine and excrement following the prisoners’ war on hygiene.
As the film progresses, the sense of unease grows. Michael Fassbender, who plays Bobby Sands with great talent, withers, suffers, willingly endures his pain under the impassive gaze of a camera that delivers minute after minute before our eyes the sufferings of a man with indomitable courage.
Steve McQueen’s gamble paid off: the film leaves its mark, imprinting on us and delivering one of the most violent messages of the Anglo-Irish conflict. All this in a most disturbing silence: Hunger has very little dialogue (with the exception of the conversation between Sands and the priest in the middle of the film), making this prison one of the most suffocating and inhuman.
A must-see film that will undoubtedly give viewers plenty to think about!
