🍀[Irish Week] Movie Review: Hunger

Northern Ireland - 1981
The movies shows two point of view: how's life for detainees and warders. 
Everyday is a fight for power inside the prison and violence is a costant. Tension between the parts is palpable and there are brutal repercussions for any outrage to the prison's rules or guards order.

It all starts with the arrest and consequent imprisonment of Davey Gillian, a suspect IRA member and the IRA wing of the jail is where he's going to go. There he meets Bobby Sands, well known member of the organization, charismatic figure and leader insiede Long Kesh's walls.

Sands fights for status recognition of "political prisoners" for IRA members and when both the blanket protest and dirty protest fail, he organizes the ultimate kind of remostrance: an hunger strike.
Bobby talks about this with father Dominic Moran (with an incredible 15 minutes monologue) and it shows how much he cares about the cause.

The final part of the movie is about Sands sufferings to the strike's consequences, that will lead him to the prison hospital (where he still refused to eat) to his death. 9 other members died for the strike before the prisoners requested were accepted by the British government, beside the political prisoners status.

My Opinion👍👎

The movie is dark, cruel and cruent and will leave a weight on your chests (not that I expected something different, given the topic).
Actors could be used as example in movie encyclopedies, they we able to portray feelings and ideals from both sides and the historical reconstructions are accurate and well-documented. Steve McQueen doesn’t take sides nor he portrays the story from only one point of view, but he also doesn’t take back when he has to show cruent and violent scenes, so this is not a movie for every taste or for those who are easily impressionable.
It's hard to just sit and watch a movie like this and not wondering how it was possible that events like this happened only 30 years ago!

This is the first Michael Fassbender/Steve McQueen collaboration movie that I've seen

Would I pay the full prize ticket? yes! Even if it's disturbing in its cruelty, it helps to understand better modern conflicts and the reasons they started!

Ranking: 4/5

Photo credits: impawards.com & tasteofcinema.com