Hunger

I mentioned before that my picture of prisons has been somewhat skewed by popular presentation. In much the same fashion I have become really rather resilient to prison dramas ability to shock, coming to consider largely inhuman conditions "the norm" for such things. Which is why I was deeply surprised at just how god damn nasty Hunger makes the conditions suffered by those in Maze Prison appear.

Split into three distinct sections, Hunger chronicles events immediately prior to the death of Bobby Sands during a hunger strike in 1981.

The first details the protest before the decision to go ahead with the not eating scheme, the "no wash protest". With next to no dialogue, it follows a new inmate to the prison and one of it's guards as they both go about the business of surviving the ordeal. And Christ on a bike is it bad in there. Beatings and humiliation are a regular occurrences. The prisoners, naked to a man, squat in featureless cells smearing their own poop across the walls and peeing under the door while horror after fresh horror is revealed in grim silence.

The middle section, the only real dialogue in the film happens to be dialogue in it's entirely. Shot in one long half hour take, with a couple of angles at the end, it shows a conversation between Sands himself and priest, where he outlines and also strengthens himself to what he feels must now be done. I found the this section the most interesting. It's complex, believable and passionate. The simple presentation letting the actors and script ably carry the weight.

The third, again, mostly devoid of speech, covers his physical deterioration. While lacking the threatening and oppressive nature of the first section (as well as the whole shit-up-the-walls business) it again reveals a fresh hell as it artfully conveys the pain he accepted. Less memorable than the first, indeed it's rather drawn out, which I suppose the nature of his death demanded.

The film takes no stance on the moralities involved, it doesn't pick sides. Or at least I believe it was trying to avoid doing so, I have an almost Pavlovian disapproval of anything Margaret Thatcher says, but the film is not to know this. I don't believe it was even really about the cause for which they suffered, rather the suffering in itself and the determination of these people. While I'm quite sure life in the Maze wouldn't have been some summer camp with their compliance, the fact that they chose many of the hardships they endured left an indelible impression of relentless men.

With little in the way of plot or character and a higher human feces quota than any other film I can name it's not by any means an easy watch, but it has an incredible eye for the imagery and is strangely compelling as it paints it's bleak picture.