Hunger

HUNGER (2008) - July 16, 2010
A bizarre, intense prison film about a jail in Ireland in the '80s, filled with a bunch of political prisoners.  It was supposedly about a particular prisoner's hunger strike, though that stuff only really came into play in the last little bit of the film.  Mostly, the film focused on a handful of prisoners, and one guard.  A little bit more background would have been nice -- for instance, I didn't realize that the prisoners were living in squalor thanks to a "no wash" strike until about halfway through the film.  I just figured that it was a really terrible prison.  Still, I enjoyed the movie; there was something strangely engaging and almost hypnotic about the grimness of it all.  Steve McQueen's direction was quite good, and though the film was deliberately paced, it was absolutely never boring.  We never particularly got to know any of the characters all that well, but it almost didn't seem to matter (I mean, it would have been nice, but the film definitely had a lot of other stuff going for it).  ***