Hunger
Steve McQueen's last movie Hunger caused a real stir on the festival circuit last year as well as cementing Michael Fassbender as one of the most exciting actors around at the moment.
It's hard to believe that this movie is McQueen's feature debut and it is this week's Hidden Gem.
Hailed as an artistic masterpiece, Hunger begins with Maze Prison officer Raymond Logan (Stuart Graham; Michael Collins) preparing for another gruelling day at work in H-Block.
The Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) prisoners are staging a ‘dirty’ protest in a bid to gain political prisoner status, and are refusing to wash or wear the prison uniform.
On the same day, a new IRA prisoner Davey (Brian Milligan; The Boxer) arrives at The Maze, and gets placed in a cell smeared with the excrement of fellow IRA member and cell mate Gerry (Liam McMahon; Snatch).
Michael Fassbender (Band of Brothers) also nominated for a BAFTA for his role lost an astonishing 21KG to give a powerful and captivating performance as Bobby Sands, who, following several brutal attempts by the prison officers to quell the ‘dirty’ protest, uses his own body as a last resort and leads Davey and the other IRA prisoners in a hunger strike.
Steve McQueen has made the jump from Turner Prize winning artist to fully fledged filmmaker in one impressive swoop as you will not see another debut movie like this.
It's an intense and powerful movie as McQueen depicts, with unflinching determination, the horror conditions and degrading treatment that these men were forced to endure on a daily basis.
Fassbender's truly outstanding as Bobby Sands the weight loss is enough to make your eyes water, truly above and beyond the call of duty.
It's a harrowing performance from Fassbender as the man who was willing to put his life on the line for a cause. While the actor is now reaping the rewards, he has just worked with Quentin Tarantino in Inglourious Basterds, he deserved more recognition for this role.
At times it's a difficult watch the setting of the prison is incredibly claustrophobic and McQueen relies more on the power of the images that he creates rather than pages and pages of dialogue.
The movie is very intelligent it doesn't rub the politics and rights and wrongs of the time in your face but focuses instead on a group of men and their fight for what they believe in.
It's a very original and powerful movie that break through all of the cliches of prison movies to create something completely new, unique and in a very odd way beautiful.
Hunger is one of those movies that you have to see because it packs such a punch, you will see nothing else like it on DVD this year.
FemaleFirst Helen Earnshaw
Tagged in Michael Fassbender