Screenings: Steve McQueen's Hunger at the IFC

Following its North American premiere at last year's New York Film Festival, Artist Steve McQueen's first feature film, Hunger, is now screening to the public at the International Film Center.  McQueen's first feature-length film recalls a particularly volatile moment during Ireland's "Troubles," the 1981 hunger strike led by IRA member Bobby Sands from a North Irish prison in order to force the British government into recognizing the political status of he and his fellow prisoners. After a sixty-plus day strike, Sands died at the age of twenty-seven; rising to martyr status, his death ultimately resulted in a new surge of IRA activity. McQueen's attention to detail is exquisite -- Hunger's guttural sounds and graphic imagery capture the raw, day-to-day violence that governed the HM Prison Maze. McQueen has characterized Hunger as a project most concerned with humanity at its bottom line; critical reception has been largely positive, though recent IRA-related attacks might raise questions about the valorization of political violence, one possible read on the film.