Thursday, February 9, 2012

Hunger (2008) dir. Black Steve McQueen


"And in the course of this haunting, often grueling film, Mr. McQueen makes you acutely conscious of the relationship between language and action, the gap between relatively abstract terms like 'resistance,' 'radicalism' and 'hunger strike' and the concrete deeds that give them flesh. The scope of 'Hunger' is too narrow, its methods too intensive, to offer anything like a full historical analysis of the Troubles in Northern Ireland, and it does not really set out to explain why Sands and his comrades did what they did. Instead Mr. McQueen shows how they did it, and in what circumstances, and the fruit of his inquiry is both horrifying and, strange to say, beautiful." (NY Times)

But is it boring? Yes, but it's redeemed by a welcome stretch of dialogue in the second act, if something this boring can be said to have acts.

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