Terrible


The movie is called "Hunger," but the hunger strike didn't even start until the final third of the movie, and it only showed one guy going through it. The title is completely misleading.

Secondly, there was zero character development, other than the one conversation scene which we can all agree went way too long.

It was obvious that McQueen wanted to make a movie about this important historical event, but he simply didn't have enough material to fill a full motion picture, hence the endlessly long dialogue scene and the long artistic shots of smeared feces, which still only brought the movie to a paltry 90 minutes. This could easily have been a short.

The scene of the parents coming to visit their starving and dying son could have been very emotional and moving. But McQueen completely missed the opportunity.

For anyone that doesn't know the history of the IRA or the longstanding English/Irish conflict, this movie did nothing to provide historical perspective, insight, or knowledge. If McQueen was looking to pad the movie, he could've taken advantage of several teachable moments.

Finally, the main actor didn't even look like he was starving. Mcqueen went out of his way to provide several fully nude shots to show off the main character's emaciation, but it was clear that a he was simply shooting a skinny guy laying on a bed. It didn't look real. If you've seen Christian Bale in "The Machinist," you know what starvation looks like.

In the end, this was an extremely boring, useless, and misleading movie that does nothing to entertain. A true waste of time. 2/10 only because it addressed an important historical event I have not yet seen on film.

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it only showed one guy going through it. The title is completely misleading.

Because Hunger only applies to multiple parties?

the one conversation scene which we can all agree went way too long.

No, we can't all agree. I loved that scene, and so did everyone I saw the film with.

It was obvious that McQueen wanted to make a movie about this important historical event, but he simply didn't have enough material to fill a full motion picture, hence the endlessly long dialogue scene and the long artistic shots of smeared feces, which still only brought the movie to a paltry 90 minutes. This could easily have been a short.

Actually, this film is 96 minutes. Ingmar Bergman's "Persona" is 88 minutes. The Third Man is only 104. Length has nothing to do with quality. I also don't think McQueen was trying to "pad" the film. I think the shots you describe help to develop a neutral tone to the movie.

The scene of the parents coming to visit their starving and dying son could have been very emotional and moving. But McQueen completely missed the opportunity.

It wasn't supposed to emotional and moving. That would be manipulative. That was never the goal for this movie. See the aforementioned "neutral tone."

For anyone that doesn't know the history of the IRA or the longstanding English/Irish conflict, this movie did nothing to provide historical perspective, insight, or knowledge. If McQueen was looking to pad the movie, he could've taken advantage of several teachable moments.

The film was made primarily for an English speaking European audience. They already know the history. It wasn't made for a mainstream American audience, so the need to "teach" wasn't there. It's already a part of history that the audience is familiar with.

Finally, the main actor didn't even look like he was starving. Mcqueen went out of his way to provide several fully nude shots to show off the main character's emaciation, but it was clear that a he was simply shooting a skinny guy laying on a bed. It didn't look real. If you've seen Christian Bale in "The Machinist," you know what starvation looks like.

Christian Bale in "The Machinist" was sleep deprived, not starving. Either way, different body types look different when subjected to starvation. Have you ever seen the holocaust films? I've seen a lot of men who liked Fassbender did at the end of this movie.

does nothing to entertain

You act like it's supposed to entertain. How odd.

Jack White killed a man with his bare hands.... While singing and playing guitar.

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Steve McQueen...is that you?

It's a movie. Pardon me for thinking it was designed to entertain. What kind of self-righteous director would make a movie not intended to entertain?

By the way, Christian Bale WAS starved when he filmed The Machinist. For you to say otherwise, is as wrong as it is ignorant. Read any interview with Bale about the movie, and he will explain how he lived on a diet of apples and coffee. He literally starved himself. You don't get down to 90 lbs from not sleeping. Give me a break. I would address the rest of your points, but this one is so absurd that nothing else you say can be taken seriously.

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Speaking of ignorance... Who said a movie is meant to entertain? Is every painting meant to entertain? How about every work of literature? Art is art... not entertainment. Some art can indeed be both, but expecting entertainment shows your inability to truly process.

The character in the Machinist was sleep deprived. Nice try dodging to points though. Also, how do you think michael fassbender lost all his weight?


Jack White killed a man with his bare hands.... While singing and playing guitar.

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Hi, I'm Earth. Have we met?

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Hi, I'm Troll. Troll we Troll?

Jack White killed a man with his bare hands.... While singing and playing guitar.

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[deleted]

It is indeed probably a surprise for people like Rupert that historical films can be made differently from some standard hollywood holocaust-flick. But I guess some people only hope to see the same things all over and over again. That every film would be made to appease the stupidest and most ignorant viewer. I wouldn't bother to see a silly film like that. So I guess I'm smart and I enjoy films made for smart people. Rupert's kind can go watch Machinist or some other entertaining circus.

There's plenty of movies with "character development", with clear motivational lesson and very emotional drama. They are usually called soap operas.

P.S. How can a film be "misleading"?

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tuvi,

Your post made me laugh out loud. Let me get this straight. According to you, two intelligent people cannot disagree on a movie, therefore I must be stupid. Based on your conclusion, I can make one of three assumptions: (1) You are not intelligent; (2) You suffer from massive insecurities and feel the need to project your unacceptable fear of being stupid onto others; or (3) both. I'm so sorry that my opinion is different from your own. Hopefully you can find a way to cope with that.

PS: (By the way, no periods needed in PS seeing as how postscript is a single word): How can a movie be misleading (trying not to laugh at the silliness of your question)? Suppose I made a movie called "The Life and Times of Winston Churchill" but then made a sequel to the Pokemon movie instead. Do you think the title would be a little misleading? Any other brainbusters for me?

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I realize this post is almost four years old, but I can't believe that no one called you on your ignorance. RE: P.S.

Yes, it's P.S., not PS-- did you never write an actual letter to someone? The P.S. has nothing to do with the word 'postscript', at least not directly. It comes from the Latin 'Post Scriptum', which is in fact two words, and it has been abbreviated with the periods for hundreds of years. Yeah, sure, there are some who eschew the periods and just go with the PS, but this is a recent 'vogue' appropriation which seems to be a predictable consequence of the literary laziness and oversimplification of language in the post-Twitter age.

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[deleted]

Your name is appropriate, I think.

First, the title doesn't guarantee a thing about when that certain aspect of a story is going to emerge. What, you're disappointed you didn't see 90 minutes of hunger? You don't understand why the need for the hunger strike had to be set up?

Secondly, this is not a film about "characters." There are different kinds of films that are driven by different concerns and/or elements. I thought people knew that.

Third, it was so "obvious" that McQueen "didn't have enough material" that 17,000-plus raters put it at a 7.6.

The long dialogue scene was a filmmaker confident that his audience would stay with a conversation about one of the most important events in one of the most significant and tragic conflicts in the history of modern Europe and the world, a confidence that extended to the point of leaving the camera stationary and the characters all but silhouetted for almost the entire thing. That is a statement of two things: Those who have adult attention spans, who aren't soaked in Sponge Bob-style editing cuts and a payoff every three seconds, and who understand the importance of the scene, will get it. Those who don't, he's not concerned about.

The lone criticism of yours that makes any sense at all is the one about how the film really doesn't do a lot to catch viewers up to all the facts and nuances of the Troubles, and how the hunger strike fits in. The long conversation between Sands and the priest hints at it, but of course there is much more--but even more obviously, there is no way anybody can cover that in a single film without spending the entire thing in exposition. This is why there are almost no really top-quality films about the Northern Ireland conflict; many are worthwhile, but all of them are flawed, some of them deeply, mostly because of the impossibility of handling fairly all the particulars of an endlessly complicated situation.

In other words, your criticism on this point is both true and not that meaningful, because it is based on an unrealistic expectation for any film about the Troubles. What McQueen has done is to try to use minimalistic filmmaking to try to evoke a fair slice of what the conflict is about, and what the impact of the conflict has been, by showing the impossibility and intractability of both sides, and the harshness and hardness and extremity of their contact with each other. I don't know what more can be done in an hour and a half, or even in three.

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emncaity; fantastic reply.

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Why, thankyaverramuch.

I also should've noted that the criticism regarding the film's refusal to give a tutorial on the Troubles really is a double-edged sword. For those of us who know a lot about it, it's a huge positive. Nearly all other films on the NI situation have expository periods during which they lay out the particulars of the history to catch the audience up, and it's just about an impossible task. It's really hard to write that kind of dialogue (or do action scenes as summary) without coming off as really stilted, whether you're talking about the Troubles or any other historical phenomenon, particularly a complex one. For one thing, almost invariably you end up with characters saying things to each other they'd never actually say, things the other character obviously would know already but which need to be forced into the dialogue to bring the viewer up to speed.

On the other hand, I can see how the refusal to do that (as in this film, mostly) really would frustrate a viewer who wasn't way up on the history and facts. So much of this film is an evocation of vastly larger and more complex history and meaning. These are just some of those difficult decisions filmmakers face, and it's a tough one in this case. I haven't done any reading about the writer's/director's intent, etc., and didn't sit through all the extras, so I don't know whether the omission of historical background indicates an intent to isolate the specifically human story apart from the political and social history, or whether it was a deliberate decision to assume a certain level of knowledge on the part of the audience and _not_ to remove the human story from the historical and political context. I'll bet that question is answered somewhere.

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There are two points where I disagree with the OP. Firstly of the supposive lack of character development, besides from the speech scene, reflected focus on Raymond (the prison guard who is later murdered) was placed to reveal the consequential guilt he suffered. This relates to the second point which differs from the OP, that Hunger is terrible because its not entertaining.

I highly doubt Hunger was made for entertainment purposes, its core purpose was to make the audience reflect upon the situations which arise throughout Hunger from a visual perspective. Studying the visuals results in internal discussions regarding the themes Hunger dealt with is the intention.

"I'd rather be hated for who I am, than loved for who I am not".

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I have to say that i agree with the points made here by emancity, as well as those made earlier by Monsieur.

I have always been an advocate for the appreciation of all aspects of filmmaking, wether it be to entertain, educate, or purely as a form of art. All of these aspects of filmmaking (and im aware that i crudely summed it up into 3 aspects) have been tackled over the years with hundreds of excellent/good examples as well as *beep* examples.

While I in particular do not ever go into a movie wanting a history lesson solely (unless it is a documentary, then i expect it to be completely factual), i do find it rewarding when i can leave a movie having learned something. But as Alan Rickman has said, dont think you know something about the bible because youve seen 'The Ten Commandments'. I am rather uneducated on the details of the IRA and their struggles over the years, all of what little knowledge I have of the events has come from films, wether it be 'The Crying Game', 'Bloody Sunday', 'In The Name of the Father', or 'Hunger'. And i can honestly say that i would have been turned off by this film had it given some long, unnecessary backstory to catch us up on events. Then the film would have lost its minimalistic feel and drug on through monotiny. I feel McQueen did an amazing job of portraying one aspect of the struggle of the IRA (even if the hunger strike was a vital and intricate part of their cause that the film did not let on to, one can assume as much).

And as for the extended dialogue scene, i though that was amazing! A brilliantly rehearsed scene between two talented actors that was ample backstory to their plight, which Pupkin felt was missing in the film. That 17 minute scene was my favorite scene in the film, and really made me have a newfound appreciation for the cause, no matter wether I agreed with it or not.

But like you said, and as I know, opinions are just that, opinions, and require no justification or rationalization to anyone but those to which the opinions belong. And apparently Pupkin wanted a history lesson. Sorry thats not what you got here, maybe next time.

I enjoyed it. 8.5/10

-Cortes

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[deleted]

...much appreciated, tanks verra moosh...

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" If you've seen Christian Bale in "The Machinist," you know what starvation looks like. " Yep,machinist was a way better movie than this one too.

"In the end, this was an extremely boring, useless, and misleading movie that does nothing to entertain. A true waste of time. 2/10 only because it addressed an important historical event I have not yet seen on film." You summed up perfectly my impression of this film.I understand that it was historical important event but it didnt have that.It's didnt have the "make you care about it" factor also all the filler it had.It felt like the movie should of lasted no more than 20 to 30 minutes tops.Then i reminded myself i was watching a steven mcqueen and and that it seems to be a common theme with his work.Shame was a 10 minute short film that he managed to stretch out to a full length feature.His formula works perfectly is he made shows for showtime or HBO .
Alot of there programs after a while are just basically filler.It's like mcqueen tackles the subject at its surface.For some reason he doesnt go any deeper than that;like he gets lazy researching and decides to either make it up or ,leave it too ambiguious .

"If you want art, don't mess about with
movies. Buy a Picasso"

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mind numbingly stupid and difficult to read combination of another *beep* response.

i was so moved by it that i just had to reply...but not motivated enough to tear it apart.

cheers.

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Boring, inaccurate, dumb movie by the most overrated director.

See 12 Years A Slave, to appreciate the true meaning of the 'emperors new clothes' story. It feels like 12 years have passed watching one of his films.

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It's like mcqueen tackles the subject at its surface.For some reason he doesnt go any deeper than that;like he gets lazy researching and decides to either make it up or ,leave it too ambiguious .


McQueen is so very deep to me. He doesn't "gets lazy researching", he leaves things ambiguious because he wants the audience to draw its own conclusions, to fill the voids, to think, in one word. Such a forgotten verb, this one.

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yes

Erik Lehnsherr: You want society to accept you, but you can't even accept yourself.

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Rupert, spot-on analysis, as always.

Boring flick. No character development. Indecipherable accents. Hunger strike took place with about 15 mins. to go in the flick.

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So very sorry if in this movie people spoke with their own Irish accent and not with a Texan accent like McConaughey's, just to mention one. You can see it subtitled, it this bothers you.

The only character we have to care for is Bobby Sands and we see what happens to him. The troubles between Ireland and England lasted for centuries, I don't think it was the case to summon them up, what do you say? We know all that we need to know from the intense dialogue between Bobby and the priest, that's more than enough to push us and see why they arrived to that point.

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Yes, God forbid a film might be made to make one think and present something as realistic, neutral and objective as possible and not to entertain and distract.

And those characters, no development... How dare they make something about people already fully formed and not in transition?

And so damn uninvolving... it just really didn't draw me in and made me feel something by using more conventional techniques since I am so dead behind the eyes that just seeing a documentary style film about such grim events just does nothing for me as I am unable to ponder upon 'what the hell was going on there and why did these people do what they did' and maybe find out some more if I do not have much knowledge about The Troubles. I also happen to be dead inside and numb and I needed the director to take those chances to emotionally blackmail me into feeling something as I am unable to empathize with two parents watching their son starving himself to death, respectively dying when not assisted by a crying face and some generic sad piano or guitar music.

They really should have spoon fed me all the information needed so I can go on with my normal life after this movie and not maybe just maybe use it to further inform myself about a pretty important event and raise some actually very interesting questions that are very relevant today and that maybe just maybe, when considered, might actually help understand and improve the world a little bit. So yes, just useless. I wanted some biased, altered to be more emotionally involving storyline I can then accept as historical fact, something more like Pearl Harbour or Titanic.

Why not put more 'teachable moments' in instead of drawing everything for so long to set the atmosphere and give, as much as possible on such a small scale, a more accurate impression of the slow paced life in prison, tediousness of some tasks and the actual slow and uneventful reality of dying of self inflicted hunger. What was that all about?

Truth be told, I might have actually liked this film but Fassbender's skinny body definitely did not look like the real dying from starvation type of body and that just tipped me over completely. They should have chosen an actor with different bone structure to really meet my expectations regarding that.

P.S. Instead of Hunger they maybe should have called it 'Some political prisoners in Northern Ireland do not comply, get abused by the guards, abuse the guards and then after Bobby Sands has a waaay too long conversation with some priest decide to go on a hunger strike' to be less misleading.

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The movie is called "Hunger," but the hunger strike didn't even start until the final third of the movie, and it only showed one guy going through it. The title is completely misleading.


OP has a point. like i saw this one movie once, saving private ryan, and the dude doesn't even show up 'til the third reel. and don't get me started on the wizard of oz. not even a real wizard.


turns out the hairy one's a dude. metal one too. all dudes...

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