The duo of Michael Fassbender and Steve McQueen always makes for a very intriguing film and "Hunger" is no exception.
"Irish republican Bobby Sands leads the inmates of a Northern Irish prison in a hunger strike." - Based on a true story.
The 1981 Irish hunger strike was the culmination of a five-year protest during The Troubles by Irish republican prisoners in Northern Ireland. The protest began as the blanket protest in 1976, when the British government withdrew Special Category Status for convicted paramilitary prisoners. In 1978, after a number of attacks on prisoners leaving their cells to "slop out", the dispute escalated into the dirty protest, where prisoners refused to leave their cells to wash and covered the walls of their cells with excrement. In 1980, seven prisoners participated in the first hunger strike, which ended after 53 days.
The second hunger strike took place in 1981 and was a showdown between the prisoners and the Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher. One hunger striker, Bobby Sands, was elected as a Member of Parliament during the strike, prompting media interest from around the world. The strike was called off after ten prisoners had starved themselves to death—including Sands, whose funeral was attended by 100,000 people.
I went into this moving knowing that it would be disturbing, but I knew that it would be done well. Michael Fassbender blew me away in this film. I'm not even being bias just because I find him super sexy. You felt everything he felt, along with the other select individuals who were in the film as other IRA members.
This movie is very difficult to watch, but you can't tear yourself away from it. I audibly gasped when Fassbender's character was on screen after he had started his hunger strike. It was striking and very disturbing. The last 30 minutes of the film shows Bobby Sands slowly fading away and how the lack of food and sustenance was affecting his body and mind.
I can't even begin to imagine everything that those prisoners went through and the fact that it got so bad, that the only way to make a statement was to starve yourself to death.
I just... can't even with this movie. It was so good and moving and hardly any words were spoken during the entire first half of the film. Actions speak louder than words.
You must see this movie.