Hunger



As I have stated a few different times now...this film is unique...so unique in fact, that I feel like I did when I first saw films like "Fargo", "Taxi Driver", or "Magnolia"...or perhaps, when I first saw actors like Daniel Day-Lewis or Sean Penn. It raises the bar. It doesn't make much sense that the film is unique because it is overtly visual (since that is the nature or essence of film), but the original intent was to actually make a film about the 1981 hunger strike in Northern Ireland, without any words. Act one and Act three, are without words (or dialogue, to be more specific). Act two, is like intermission from the visual brilliance, to be strictly engaged in a one-shot, 17 minute dialogue between bobby sands and a catholic priest.

the film is excruciatingly sensual, and thus, engaging in every way that you could ever hope a film would provide. for those of us in the world with low pain tolerance and highly sensitive senses of taste, smell, vision, touch, and hearing - this is a disturbing portrait, yet insanely beautiful. this was well symbolized in the beautiful spiral painted on the prison wall...painted by the prisoners with their own shit, during the "no wash" protest.

the director stated after the film, that the majority of his influences for the films were painters and paintings, rather than films and filmmakers. in reflection, it is quite obvious that he created more of a "motion painting", rather than a "motion picture".