Hunger

Our first trip to our local independent cinema 'The Phoenix' in East Finchley, a splendid place, and what a film it was: 'Hunger', a gruelling, agonising, painful depiction of life in the cells for Republican prisoners in 1981, culminating in the hunger strike and death of Bobby Sands. A monumental piece of cinema, which carefully navigated the line between representing the prisoners' plights and fetishising their suffering. Bleak stabs of context (the brutal murder of a prison guard in front of his mother) also reigned-in the inevitable temptation to see the film as a pean to martyrdom. Sands' story was nevertheless inspiring and his conviction conveyed expertly. The acting throughout (and especially in the long scene featuring Sands and the priest) was extraordinary. Steve McQueen has made the leap from art installation to the big screen without losing any of the attention to detail or any of his vision. I've always been fascinated in the events of the years I was alive, yet too young to know what was going-on (the early eighties) and so for me this was especially illuminating. I can't recommend it highly enough.

Gareth