Hunger is set in the infamous H-block of the Maze prison in Belfast 1981.  IRA men incarcerated there were no longer considered political prisoners.  According to then Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, there was no such thing as political violence , it was criminal violence and therefore there was no status as a political prisoner, they were considered criminal prisoners. Upon withdrawal of the Special Category Status, the prisoners refused to wear the prison uniforms, striped naked of their clothing they wore the blankets off their bunks.  Being dressed in the uniform was the rule for using the bathrooms and because of the refusal to wear the prison garb; they resorted to smearing the walls with faeces and urinating under the door into the corridor.  This became known as the ‘dirty protest.’   When the British government refused to enter into negotiations to end the ‘troubles’ in Northern Ireland and the status of being a political prisoner was denied, ten inmates voluntarily decided to go on a hunger strike and starve themselves to death.  Steve McQueen’s film Hunger focuses on Bobby Sands who led the hunger strike of 1981.  In the film McQueen shows the brutality and violence within the Maze, from the degrading cavity searches to the violent washings. 

The story is told with very little dialogue, McQueen let the camera tells most of the story. Donal Foreman explains that the best scripts don’t make the best films, what makes a film great can’t be reduced to words on a page.  Seán Crossan agrees that the cinematography in Hunger allows the audience to engage in the moment with out the need for dialogue. 

The most striking scene in the film is a conversation between Sands and a Catholic priest.  Although I found this scene a little over rehearsed, it explained what has happened in the film and what is going to happen and why.  The two discuss Bobby’s decision to go on a hunger strike.  The priest feels that the British government won’t give a danm about prisoners starving themselves to death and that he should think of his family and the other prisoners who have signed on to starve. Sands feel he needs to control the situation, to fight for his sense of identity.

McQueen avoids the martyrdom of Bobby Sands in this film and reflects on the vulnerability of the human body but the strength of the human spirit.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Sources:

Crossan, Seán. ‘Review of Hunger.’  Estudios Irlandeses 4. 2009. P 160-162.

Foreman, Donal. What’s Missing from Irish Cinema.  http://www.donalforeman.com/writing/hunger.html.  Accessed on march 18, 2017.

Trailer:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mw7WJLZmVF4