By Kevin Pallotti
Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Directed by: Steve McQueen
Starring: Michael Fassbender
Distributed by Criterion films. Released in 2008.
Is there any other actor in Hollywood right now who is in higher demand than Michael Fassbender? Seeing as how I
What is that on the wall?
began this review by asking that question, you can safely infer that the answer is a resounding no. From 2009-2011, Fassbender has accumulated quite the resume. His discography includes; Inglorious Basterds, Jane Eyre, X-Men First Class, and a film I recently reviewed, Shame. As most film buffs know, actors don’t go on a run like this without one performance that opens the flood gates. For Michael Fassbender, this film was Hunger. Back in 2006/2007, an artist by the name of Steve McQueen elected to make a daring life alteration by taking up a new career as an independent film director. As an Irish born and raised individual, Ireland’s storied pursuit of independence from Britain proved to be an overwhelming topic of interest. I won’t claim to have inside knowledge of how Fassbender and McQueen came to know each other. But, I do know that their cooperative effort to bring Hunger to the big screen, led to the genesis of an agonizingly potent human drama
Now that you’ve been adequately teased, I can begin. Hunger takes place in the year 1981. At this point in history, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was bringing the hammer down on the people of Ireland for violent actions committed in the name of Irish independence. The film depicts the final days of Bobby Sands, a volunteer for the Provisional Irish Republican Army and inspirational figure, who led a hunger strike within the walls of the infamous Maze Prison. Through his hunger strike, Sands hoped to earn back political status (a.k.a. basic human rights) for IRA prisoners who were being treated with unbearable amounts of cruelty and abuse. In order to properly convey Sands’ motivation for his ultimately fatal hunger strike, Hunger deliberately takes the time to show you every painful detail of a prisoner’s daily experience in Maze Prison.
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