Silence is always the enemy-the calm before the storm.įrom a long shot of puddles of urine streaming together like tributaries from under doors of prison cells to collect in the hallway to the medium shots of “blanket” and “no-wash” protest prisoners wrapped in dirty wool covers, modern-day cavemen dwelling in filth, McQueen’s use of perspective is Goya, not Godard. Immediately he drops to the ground to check for a car bomb, his wife peeking out from behind a virgin-white curtain, terrified to look as he turns the key in the ignition. His neighborhood seems eerily quiet as the camera whips from one end of the utterly still street to the other. Like the soldiers serving in Iraq who know their lives are on the line if a town is uncannily quiet, prison guard Raymond Lohan (Stuart Graham as the man whose hands are forever scabbed or dripping blood in metaphor of the British empire itself) is unnerved when he leaves his house to drive off to work. The act of waiting becomes a suspense device. Personally, I was even more impressed with McQueen’s ability to wield silence like a painter instinctively aware of which portions of the canvas to leave blank. Several people walked out of the screening I attended, and I venture to guess McQueen’s unflinching, cerebrally stylized violence reminiscent of Abel Ferrara, paired with sound effects as rich and colorful as the near-religious image of snowflakes landing on a prison guard’s bloody-knuckled hand, proved to be too much for delicate stomachs. Hunger will be a roller coaster ride through the atmosphere of Maze Prison, not a straightforward study from a history book. McQueen’s film is a nuanced masterpiece that never flaunts its artistry, but uses it humbly to serve the all-important story.įrom the earth-shattering opening-a rattling of pots and pans in a protest rally until the noise becomes deafening, nearly unbearable, even as the close-ups of the items being banged resemble nothing but pieces in an automated factory assembly line-to the sudden blackness, to credits over silence, McQueen has stated his unorthodox intentions. And yet Hunger, with all its visual, sonic and editing elements flowing together in harmony like a five-star, six-course meal, exemplifies the phrase. The term “art film” has been batted around, posted like a sticky note to so many movies since the time of its conception that it’s hard to type the two words together with a straight face. What I wasn’t prepared for was an equally assured, mind-blowing sound design and stage-worthy script. Since McQueen is first and foremost a prestigious visual artist, I expected the images in Hunger, his Camera d’Or-nabbing debut feature about the infamous hunger strike staged at Northern Ireland’s Maze Prison in 1981 after leader Bobby Sands and his fellow inmates’ special status as political prisoners was revoked, to be stunning. But in England, it’s always “Anglo” first (McQueen is not “Caribbean-British” or “African-English”), an offensive veil that the Provisional IRA fought to rip away. In contrast, America has always been a land of identity politics, defining our groups as “African-American,” “Mexican-American,” “Jewish-American,” the “American” always second in importance. For the British believe in “country first” only when that country is England, which is why Irish Republican nationalism (Ireland’s own version of “country first”) historically has been so offensive, thus brutally repressed. It’s fascinating that Steve McQueen, a Turner Prize-winning black artist born and bred in a land that defines itself by “country first” (and is having its own faith shaken at a time when many young Brits are defining themselves as “Muslim first”) would create a film that subtly uncovers his homeland’s hypocrisy.
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