Hunger
Steve McQueen | UK | 2008
96 min

Steven Soderbergh’s masterpiece with Che was not really a biopic, but a look at guerilla warfare and the torture a man with certain ideals and unshakable principle willingly puts himself under. The characters of Hunger and especially Bobby Sands are similar people. Sands and his friends are all IRA revolutionaries, and they are dedicated to their cause. People like Sands do not fear suffering because they have already resigned themselves to it. They have stripped away everything from their life; family, friends, and life of comfort, to be able to dedicate themselves mentally to their cause. A person like Sands has a vision of his ideal world and he has an objective to help him realize it, and nothing will divert him from his path.

The film shows us how Bobby and the other IRA fighters are treated by the British police in prison. It is brutal and torturous and not an easy watch. But it is also important to highlight that a lot of their difficulties in prison are the result of their own actions. They do not want a peaceful co-existence with their prison wardens. Their arrest has not ended their battle, and they treat their imprisonment as a continuation of the war they were waging outside the prison cells. They fight on by making the life of the prison guards as difficult as possible even if it means it means they voluntary make their own situation worse. They smear their walls with their own shit, they pour urine under the prison doors, they struggle and fight with the guards when they are taken for a haircut, and when they are given new clothes and better prison conditions, they fight against it, for they see it as being indirectly bribed. They want freedom for Ireland, not prison comforts as appeasement.

And finally, they go on a hunger strike, and this is preceded by the film’s best moment. A long conversation between Bobby Sands and a priest, as they discuss the struggle, the hunger strike, and the morality of it all. Apparently this was a 17 minute single shot, but it was so good, that I could have sworn it was much shorter.

We do not have to agree or disagree with Sands’ ideologies but it is difficult not to admire a person that is so dedicated to his principles. In a world where people change ideologies like one changes shirts, people like Bobby Sands remain true to their cause. But the world is not ruled by such people, so people like Bobby Sands die young. And they die, because they almost never win, only raise awareness through their suffering and pain.