The poster for artist turned filmmaker, Steve McQueen’s “Hunger” (no, not that Steve McQueen) is a good excuse to discuss the film that’s coming out next month.
We wrote in the fall, “Impressionistic, lyrical and, at times, excruciatingly hard to watch, Steve McQueen’s “Hunger,” won the The Caméra d’Or at Cannes for good reason. It’s an intense and disquieting debut from a filmmaker we must now all watch.”
“Ostensibly about imprisoned Provisional IRA member Bobby Sands who lend a hunger strike to protest his prison conditions for 66 days before he died in 1981 at the age of 27, ‘Hunger’ eschews most overt political statements about the story and uses it to tell a more personal and intimate chronicle of human suffering and the limits one will go to for a cause they believe in.”
It can be harrowing at times, but it’s also quite beautiful and certainly worth spending your time on. “Hunger” has been showered with awards over the last eight months including the aforementioned Camera d’Or (best first feature), the Discovery Award for Best First Film at the Toronto Film Festival, and the BAFTA Award for Most Promising Newcomer in director McQueen. It was also nominated for Best Foreign Film at the recent Independent Spirit Awards. If all that doesn’t signal that this is a new voice in cinema, we’re not sure what does.
The film stars Michael Fassbender as an emaciated Sands and the world will probably become a bit more familiar with him when he stars in Quentin Tarantino’s “Inglourious Basterds” later this year. His performance is stellar and devastating. “Hunger” open March 20 in limited release. Here’s the trailer if you haven’t already seen it.
