Hunger - and three other movies

I've been to four movies in the last ten days or so, but none of them moved me to write about them until tonight. Well that's not completely true. Examined Life was more than I was ready to write about. The other two, before tonight, less.

In a review for the Toronto Film Festival, Monika Bartyzel wrote about Examined Life: (Photo from the same link)

Throughout the course of 90 minutes, Cornel West, Peter Singer, Slavoj Zizek, Judith Butler with Sunaura Taylor, Avital Ronell, Michael Hardt, Kwame Anthony Appiah, and Martha Nussbaum appear on-screen talking about modern philosophies and thought. To bring life and depth to each discussion, she films each in the midst of movement – whether it be a car ride through New York City, a walk through a park, or a conversation at a garbage dump. At times this works well, the environment feeding into the discussion, while other times, the movement and cuts to passerby distracts from the discussion. In these moments, as the camera trails off the speaker, it almost seems as if it’s bored by the words.

I noticed this constant movement - walking, boating, biking, in the back of a cab - too, and also how everything was in such an urban setting. Even the idyllic row boating scene was filled with buildings and other signs of ubanity. The people we'd suggested the movie to thought all the talking (even if they were also walking) heads were a bit slow. What does it mean that all the philosophers are in urban settings most of the time? J and I enjoyed the movie. We knew of a couple of the philosophers and it was good to hear them all in their own words. But our daughter is studying philosophy so we're biased. I couldn't help but feel, I must know more about philosophy than I realized, or these guys have dumbed it down so far that I didn't get any totally new ideas - except for the garbage guy who thinks we should consume more. So I'll let you click on the link to the review above if you want to know more.


Away We Go was a slick Hollywood movie with some funny lines. Of the three generations who went, my son liked it the most and my mom and I (this was while I was in LA) thought it was . . . ok. Thirty somethings trying to figure out what to do with their lives. I know lots of people are crazy about David Eggars, but reading A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius didn't inspire me to read any of his later books. It was easy to believe he wrote this film.

Then Sunday night we saw Micky Bo & Me at the musuem. (This was our first visit since the opening. I took pictures from outside for a later post, trying to figure out how much of the new addition really is just stairwell.) Neither of us got into the movie. The two young kids - one a Catholic and the other a Protestant - growing up in Belfast fancied themselves as Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and were not particularly sympathetic - particularly Micky. One could say he played his role well, but he wasn't a kid I'd want to be around.

Then tonight, at the Bear Tooth we saw Hunger. When the credits began rolling and it said Northern Ireland, I was fearful after last night's movie. But then Steve McQueen built up a hugely powerful film through the meticulous study of details, slowly watched through the camera, interspersed with sudden acts of brutality. We see a close up of the prison guard - we don't know that at the time - buttoning his shirt. The camera pans along a crack in the ceiling, slowly, then down the wall. These are long shots, but they are perfect.

I got irritated at the woman next to me who began talking as we watched an orderly mop up the piss and disinfectant the prisoners pour out into the hallway under the doors of their cells. (OK, the orderly added the disinfectant.) He starts way down at the end of the hallway and we watch him work the liquid across the floor all the way down the hall. I was mesmerized until that lady started talking. She might have thought nothing was happening, but everything was happening. We were in prison time where even this was an event that breaks the monotony. The visuals were spectacular in their plainness. They showed nothing and everything. And the music, so low keyed that I really didn't consciously notice it until the credits mentioned it, but I recognized that it had been there all the time. A movie like this reminds me why the other three didn't inspire me to write anything.

This interview with the director Steve McQueen may give a clue why the movie is so powerful:

I honestly don't know about making any more films - I'm not that passionate about it, I'm not in love with the medium, to be honest. Creativity ought to be about ideas, I believe, not the medium that it serves. I think that I am, basically, going to find it extremely hard to find a story which involves me and energises me, and about which I can feel completely passionate. I don't know. We'll see. It's a definite ‘maybe'. I've now got a Hollywood agent - but I don't think that they'll be hearing a lot from me!

"So you won't find me working for a major studio, be very certain of that. It's not about money - it's about being asked to compromise, and that's one thing that I never ever do! Never. I want to have my own say on the final cut and look of any film that has my name on it - what's the point, otherwise?"

The main character in the movie - hunger striker Bobby Sands (played by Michael Fassbender) - is equally uncompromising. In one remarkable scene, we see Bobby and a priest, sitting at a table, backlighted, as they argue the ethics and practicality of a hunger strike. Both men passionately arguing their cause. McQueen says in the interview he wanted it like a tennis match, back and forth. But I think with them sitting there at the table, it was more like a chess game as they moved arguments across the board.

This is a movie! I hope McQueen finds more stories he can get passionate about. And yes, it raises prison issues that are relevant today, but the movie itself, without any of that, is powerful.

I can't embed the trailer, but you can go here to see it. Listen to the sound. And no this is NOT a children's movie. There's a fair bit of nudity and violence.