Steve McQueen: Hunger

Goldsmiths'-trained artist Steve McQueen's first feature Hunger is a beautiful film about an ugly chapter in British history, the treatment of IRA prisoners in the Maze prison in Northern Ireland in the early years of the Thatcher administration, when in response to being stripped of their status as political prisoners Bobby Sands and several others refused to wear prison issue clothing and eventually organized a staggered hunger strike to the death. The episode resulted in the deaths of Sands and nine others, which in turn electrified tensions and deepened sectarian divisions in the province, with a slew of riots through the summer of 1981, a spike in brutality and casualties for both civilians and military personnel, renewed IRA recruitment on both sides of the border and considerable political advantage for Sinn Fein over the more 'collaborationist' SDLP in the north. It was, to say the least, a deeply traumatic experience for the Irish and a highly-charged chapter in the history of British politics generally, one that has remained unexamined until now. The DVD issued by Criterion includes an episode of the BBC news programme Panorama from 1981 which dealt with the issue in depth, and it is a fascinating object lesson in politics and the media, as supposedly 'objective' BBC journalists harangue Sinn Fein spokesmen in the most biased and patronizing tones imaginable. It is easy to see how, in retrospect, a credulous British public trying to keep abreast of events might be persuaded of the rectitude of the government position, when earnest and articulate English presenters who seem to know the subject inside-out plead with heavily-accented, slightly scruffy Irish leaders to see the error of their ways. 'We' the British are the reasonable, the rational, the well-turned out and well-informed and, crucially, concerned outsiders doing our best to bring the light of reason to a somewhat less enlightened province confused by its own obscure emotional needs. It is a highly effective tactic in the state-sponsored war against political insurgence everywhere.

McQueen, who was born (in 1969) and raised in London, recalls (in a fascinating appendix) the British press coverage of events at that time, which included front-page countdowns of days spent starving - Sands lingered for 66 days - and mentions that his sympathies were always with the hunger strikers. It's a position that is communicated in the film without, significantly, dehumanizing the opposition; prison life is portrayed as a kind of hell for guards and prisoners alike, as is the wider social arena for all who were caught up in the vortex of events, except perhaps for Thatcher herself, who does quite a good job of dehumanizing herself (in clips of actual news footage) with high-handed rhetoric about "criminal murder, criminal bombing, and criminal violence" delivered to an adoring Tory House. But there is no mistaking the brutality of prison guards who regularly beat naked prisoners to a bloody pulp or drag them through enforced baths like animals in a factory-farm until they pass out. Sands himself (played brilliantly by Irish actor Michael Fassbender) is a sympathetic character whose humanity is inextricably and fatally mixed up with his unbending political passion. An entire third of the film is spent in wordless contemplation of his gradual decline, and this segment reflects the first section, similarly focused on visual events which are eloquent enough to speak without recourse to words, scenes of prison life from both inmates' and guards' perspectives. It is the sort of filmmaking that exposes its roots in visual art generally, with gorgeous cinematic images, of benumbed Chief Officer Ray Lohan (played by Stuart Graham) smoking outside in the snow, of Sands' bloody head surrounded by a sea of turquoise-tinted concrete, of swollen knuckles underwater or of bare white space opening inside a feces-smeared wall as it is power-washed. Such images are all the more arresting for their bleak aspect, because bringing such beauty to bear upon events as disheartening as these allows for a curiously poignant and subtle response in the viewer. It is sophisticated, visually confident filmmaking such as is rarely seen in first features, and McQueen ups the ante even further with the elegant structure of the whole, which positions his two image-oriented segments symmetrically about one long, static, extended take of Sands and a Derry priest (played by Liam Cunningham) who sit backlit, silhouetted and virtually motionless in intense discussion for a full 17 minutes before the camera pans to faces, so that we feel we are sitting at the next table and listening to a conversation in which different aspects of an already excruciating struggle are raised to the highest possible degree of rhetorical persuasion, pitting the dignity and commitment of one against the not uncompassionate pragmatism of the other. It is beautifully staged and acted, but the dialogue itself (scripted by Enda Walsh) is utterly exhilarating and should have won every award for screenwriting in the book. Hunger is a beautiful work of art and, more importantly, it is made by an artist whose political sensitivity has magnified his work's significance to a level of awareness we sorely need if we are to face our memories of these events and perhaps even the roles we played - if only as passive observers - in them.