It's been typical to start the day off with an intense drama (ref: "Three Monkeys" on Friday and "33 Scenes from Life" on Saturday.
The trend continued this morning with Steve McQueen's "Hunger", a dramatization of the Maze Prison in Northern Ireland, specifically the hunger strike that took the lives of 10 IRA prisoners in the early 80's. Many of you will remember Bobby Sands, the first of the men to die.
It's a brilliant first film by McQueen and was recognized by winning the Camera D'Or at Cannes this year.
The film opens with many scenes showing the brutal conditions (and brutality of the guards) in the Maze. For many in the audience, these scenes are uncomfortably reminiscent of American actions in Gitmo.
Sands is actually only introduced well into this section, but he quickly becomes the centre of the drama.
A middle section introduces the idea of the hunger strike through a late-night conversation between Sands and a Catholic priest. It's an electric scene and the two actors (Michael Fassbender and Liam Cunningham) played off each other beautifully.
The final section focuses on the remaining days of Sands' life. Whereas the middle section is dense conversation, the final scenes are delivered almost entirely without dialogue. The brutality of the State in the early scenes is transformed into the slow destruction of the self.
"Hunger" has distribution. It's in no way an easy journey, but is strongly recommended.
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