Hunger

[metirish]

A harrowing telling of the prison protests in the Maze that culminated in the hunger strikes that in the end claimed ten men.The first part of the movie deals with the �blanket protest" , the men refuse to wash and wear clothes. Prison cells full of shit and piss and rotten food and you hear Thatchers voice refusing herself to bend. The movie is so deliberate , one scene has a prison custodian mopping the hallway between cells after the prisoners pour their piss out the cell doors. The director Steve McQueen shows the guy mopping the floor for what seems like five minutes, it's gripping.

The movie then turns itself to Bobby Sands who while always in your mind (if you knew about what happened) was never seen as yet, Sands played by Michael Fassbender, is charismatic and a natural leader of men and in flashbacks events help explain the making of him.

Hunger is not going to explain the "Troubles" of the North and really the movie doesn't really attempt to explain fully these protests that took so many lives , instead we see how they did it and the effects on the prisoners and indeed the staff .

There is a scene where Sands sits with Dominic Moran (Liam Cunningham), a priest he has summoned to the prison to talk with and to try and explain the why of it all. It's mesmerizing to watch as we get a single side shot of both men sitting at a table smoking and talking, the scene takes 20 minutes or more and the banter back and forth is both witty and then very serious but all the while absolutely brilliant.

The final scenes of Sands dying are both horrifying and in a way beautiful , there is clearly nothing glamorous about what happened and this movie is at times very brutal to watch but it will be well worth your time.

[metirish]

Jayus , if Bobby were depending on you lot to get him something he'd die waiting.....

[metirish]

No one?....

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

Sorry, man. Hard to get up for a piss-and-shit, hunger strike, death flick. OTOH might be better than watching the Mets shit and piss on my season.

[Edgy MD]

I'd watch it twice a week, but I have a wife with other tastes.