Hunger (2008) is the first in our special series entitled: McQueeners! Celebrating the full-frontal work of director Steve McQueen.
Welcome to McQueeners! Our special series kicks off with Steve McQueen's 2008 directorial debut Hunger. Starring Michael Fassbender, this is not an easy film to talk about. We tread lightly, but it's still a very important film that deals with a difficult period in Irish history. Not only is this Steve McQueen's first feature film, it's also Michael Fassbender's full-frontal debut. Our films in the McQueener series don't get any lighter, by a long shot, but please enjoy!
Laura: Well, hello there. Welcome to On the Beat, the podcast that uncovers full frontal male nudity in cinema. My name is Laura and I am joined by my co host, Ryan. Hello, Ryan. This is the Beginning, part one of our limited series that we well, you actually came up with the name.
Ryan: No, I didn't.
Ryan: You did.
Laura: I said it.
Ryan: Yeah.
Ryan: You came up with you're going to.
Laura: Put this on me?
Ryan: Yeah, of course.
Ryan: I, um am I'm not taking ownership.
Laura: Over this together have dubbed it Mcqueeners.
Ryan: There's never going to be another filmmaker.
Ryan: Where we're able to use, like, such.
Laura: A clever pun and from a filmmaker that consistently makes very serious films. We have dubbed the limited series Mcqueeners because otherwise it'll just be really dark.
Ryan: Yeah.
Ryan: Um, all three of the films that we were going to cover because the original name was the Three McQueens.
Laura: Yeah.
Ryan: Which it was kind of like you.
Laura: Also said the Three Musqueens.
Ryan: Well, thing is here's the thing.
Ryan: You put yourself out there, you spitball.
Ryan: You throw things out there and you see what sticks.
Laura: Yeah.
Ryan: It just so happened yeah, well, it just so happened that the first thing that came out of your mouth was the one that we ended up settling on.
Laura: I wanted to do Month of McQueen, but it falls into two different months. So we can't you didn't like that?
Ryan: No, because it doesn't make any sense.
Laura: Because we are following the films of is he a sir?
Ryan: Yeah, he's a CBE.
Laura: Steve McQueen.
Ryan: Yes.
Laura: Very exciting. And the very first film we are doing is his very first film, Hunger, from 2008. Historical drama. Very heavy. But it's also our very first Fassbender our very first Michael Fassbender film.
Ryan: Yes.
Ryan: Uh, the weight of this film is insurmountable is what I put my review as.
Laura: Um, it's a lot. And this is your very first time seeing this movie?
Ryan: Yeah.
Ryan: Um, I don't know kind of how to structure if I tell the story of my relationship to the work of Steve McQueen.
Laura: Why don't we start with you telling us about Steve McQueen? Because I know you've done your research.
Ryan: I did my research.
Ryan: I did, yeah.
Ryan: I went and put myself out there and did a bit of research.
Ryan: So, sir.
Ryan: Steve McQueen.
Ryan: CBE.
Ryan: He was knighted in 2020. I'll just put that out there just now. Um, but he is a British film director, producer, writer, and video artist. Um, so obviously not to kind of diminish his kind of beginnings, but he's come from the world of art.
Ryan: He is an artiste.
Ryan: Uh, he is an artist. Um, he created art. He also won the he's also won the highest prize in art, which was the Turner Prize. So he's an accomplished artist. And he did start off his beginnings, uh, making video art installations. And some of these things I am familiar with. I'm not too sure if I'd seen any of them. But I thought I had. And I can't guarantee that I haven't, or if I have been to the tape quite a few times. So let's just get into it. Um, so just to give a kind of an example of what his art was like, he did, uh, an exhibition commemorating British soldiers in Iraq. He presented their portraits as a sheet of stamps. So I guess there's quite a lot to unravel just in that premise alone.
Laura: Stamps? As in postage stamps?
Ryan: Yeah, I would assume so. Um, we're not going to go too heavy into that sort of thing, but uh, we'll carry, uh, when I talk about a video art installation thing, I mean, I talk about the work. I mean, you might not have heard.
Ryan: Me talk about this, but I did.
Ryan: A lot of art and stuff myself, like back in the day when I was studying. Uh, Bill Viola is another one that comes to mind, who did a lot of video art installations. His stuff's very good, different than the likes of Steve McQueen's stuff. Um, but very different, very interesting, very cool to find yourself in an environment, um, that's been built by someone like that. Um, so effectively, yeah, you've got images being screened and projected onto walls in an art installation space. And that's effectively why we aren't able to really watch any of these films now, is that they kind of live and breathe in the environment in which they were created in. Um, so I guess you lose quite a lot of what those films were meant to be by just watching the images unfold on a TV set.
Laura: Yeah, we searched high and low to try to find these short films effectively. But they are different than your traditional short films.
Ryan: Yeah, they're not short films in the sense that you would see from an established director now, who's worked his way through the system as uh, steve McQueen has not worked his way through the system.
Laura: No, he's gone a totally different route, which I find fascinating.
Ryan: Yes, some people would maybe see that his route was unconventional. Um, and others would see it as being an excuse to give him a hard time as he's not gone through the system. But I would just say that it lends itself to his credit and that he's not a traditionalist. Um, and certainly his films and we'll focus more on hunger, but his films in general don't feel particularly traditional. Um, and I mean, we'll get into that.
Ryan: But uh, yeah, just to kind of speak about one probably the most notable of his of installations works is uh, and certainly pertains to what we are interested in on the podcast is a film he made in 93 called Bear, which is basically two men wrestling.
Laura: What kind of bear are you talking about? The bear?
Ryan: The growly bear, the grizzly bear.
Laura: Well, it's spelled or bear as in naked.
Ryan: It's spelt like the animal.
Ryan: Let's put it that way.
Ryan: That's probably a better way of kind.
Laura: Of going interesting, because in the film bear as the animal, they are bear naked.
Ryan: Yes.
Laura: Okay.
Ryan: Um, again, we've not watched it. Well, this stuff kind of survives mostly in picture form. We're not able to find anything that shows it in motion. But basically, um, this was two naked men, one of which is McQueen. McQueen features himself in his art installations frequently.
Laura: Okay.
Ryan: And these men I think I mentioned, they're both naked, they're wrestling. And it's basically an installation that depicts two men kind of exchanging glances that could be construed as either flirtations or threatening. So there's a lot to unpack in just that alone. And I guess, like with a lot of his work, it's eliciting, um, very kind of personal issues into his work as well. Certainly race issues.
Laura: Okay.
Ryan: Um, and we're obviously going to get too far into that into this episode of the podcast anyway.
Laura: If anyone knows the films of Steve McQueen, it's pretty easy to figure out what films we're doing next. So we'll have more to talk about.
Ryan: Yes, that will all come in due course. Um, but yeah, there's quite a long list. Quite a long list of those art installations.
Ryan: If anyone was lucky enough to watch.
Ryan: Them, then good for you. I guess the only other one of.
Ryan: Note that I would put out there.
Ryan: Is a film called Deadpan, which is basically a restaging, and that was in 97. That's a restaging of a Buster Keaton stunt. It's also a Buster Keaton stunt that we've seen, uh, in Jackass as well, where basically your character, your actor, in this case, it's McQueen, stands in a very specific spot as a building around him begins to collapse, but he is saved, um, from being crushed ah, by an open window on one of the walls. So very much in Buster Keaton's court, played for comedy, uh, without having seen it ourselves, I feel like there's, again, quite a lot of thematic concerns to unpack in a piece like that as well. Um, yeah.
Laura: Probably far more than there are to unpack in a Jackass.
Ryan: No, but yeah. Anyone familiar with that? Um, that's kind of what we're depicting there. But like I say, I think you can do your own homework there, and you can have a look and see if you can find any of his stuff. The list of those shorts is actually quite long.
Laura: If you find them, send us a link, please.
Ryan: Uh, yeah, I want to see or if not, if there's a package available.
Ryan: Where we're able to, uh, watch them.
Ryan: On a DVD or something or purchase that. That would be fantastic because we've not been able to find it, we would purchase.
Ryan: Yeah.
Ryan: As you have mentioned, this hunger is his directorial debut, I guess, for his narrative his branch into narrative feature filmmaking.
Ryan: Yeah.
Ryan: Because as much as I would say, like his art installation stuff, and I'm assuming he's made some short fiction stuff as well, because I kind of feel like you would probably need to, but I've not been able to find any of it. Again, his stuff is relatively it lives and breathes in the medium that it was created in. So not too sure where that would be. But yeah, Hunger is his directorial debut in 2008.
Laura: That's right, yeah.
Ryan: Um, and just, we'll run it all off because this is the only time I'll be doing his filmography, uh, over the preceding weeks. But Hunger, uh, 2008 Shame came out in 2011, and Twelve Years of Slave came out in 2013, which is obviously his big, uh, award winner and Widows in 2018. And just obviously, uh, for posterity, he also created a Small Axe, which was a bunch of short films.
Laura: Yeah. A limited series that's on prime.
Ryan: Yeah.
Ryan: Um, that was in 2020. And there's also another TV show here that he's involved with called Uprising in 2021. And I'm not too sure what that is. I, uh, wasn't too sure. He does have another film in the works, but I can't remember the title of it just now. Uh, didn't think it was important.
Laura: Well, we've got a few episodes to unpack that eventually.
Ryan: Uh, this is the stuff that he.
Ryan: Has out, and we're starting from the very, very beginning. But I think overall, he's a fascinating filmmaker with an interesting background, an unconventional filmmaking background. But it all lends to the credit of, uh, his ability as a filmmaker, his vision, and I guess the way that he approaches things differently. Um, he's definitely up there with, I guess, like the directors that I admire a bit more.
Ryan: They have a very direct vision.
Ryan: They know exactly what they want and what they're going to do. And there's never usually any leeway or, uh, change in that feeling or fluidity of direction, basically. And I think Hunger is a really good example of that.
Laura: So let me give you the synopsis of this film that I pulled from Letterboxd. The story of Bobby Sands, the IRA member who led the 1981 hunger strike in which Republican prisoners tried to win political status. It dramatizes events in the Mays Prison in the six weeks prior to Sans death, which is an interesting way of putting that synopsis, because although it does tell a story of Bobby Sands, I don't know if it's necessarily I would.
Ryan: Like to call the film's story more like an on. Yeah, it's kind of like immersive feeling the thing know, I'm from Scotland and I grew up, certainly my early years, I grew up during that time. And I've also worked with, let's say, uh, veterans who fought in that conflict, um, and the certain things that they had to do in their daily lives that obviously changed irrevocably as being involved in that conflict. But, uh, yeah, I think we were coming into this episode, and this was one of the few times I was concerned about what we covered in this episode because of how heavy the subject matter is. I guess that's also the same conundrum they tackled as they were trying to make this film.
Ryan: But I guess the way I've always.
Ryan: Kind of looked at it is that, uh, this is an important story. I think it's a very important story to tell. I think it's a very important story to be, I guess, part of the immortalization that cinema brings to depicting historical events right. Is that it'll just live forever, even though it's effectively an artistic and I don't know how much of it is fictionalized, uh, for dramatic effect. Um, I mean, we're really going to bury ourselves into this anyway, so I kind of don't really know in what.
Ryan: Regard, because to me, it feels very.
Ryan: Raw, and the film itself is very unflinching. And it's incredibly dense.
Laura: Yes.
Ryan: And it's only an hour and a half, and it's just like Jesus. It's incredibly thick. And it really kind of tells its story in a unique way where it does not draw out of you sympathy for anybody.
Laura: Yeah. Weirdly enough, it's almost, uh yeah. You don't have sympathy for anybody?
Ryan: No.
Laura: Not even Fastbender nobody.
Ryan: No.
Ryan: Because you're wrapped up in the conviction of these characters and what they are going through, and it's an incredibly emotional film. I found myself getting a little bit upset near towards the end of it because you are dealing quite heavily with it feels very real and tangible, but it also very much at the heart of it, is dealing with humanity and how we cling on to those things that make us feel human.
Laura: Yeah, absolutely.
Laura: I wanted to throw out the tagline before we go too deep. An odyssey in which the smallest gestures become epic and when the body is the last resource for protest.
Ryan: So there's some really beautiful cinematography in this movie. No one in the documentaries or anything like that. This film is captured beautifully. And I feel like the tagline itself helps to portray the theme of the film as well, because there's long, burdenless shots where you're looking at hands and you're looking at the process of why we're looking at these hands. And then very slowly, through the course of the narrative, we're revealed as to why we're looking at this. And it's those little moments like that with such a heightened level of importance.
Laura: It's a really tough story because this isn't a story that I grew up learning about. This is not something that we, as I as an American person, learned in school and I'm very interested in. Like, I went to Scotland to go to school and stuff. It's something that's fascinated me, but that's information that I had to gather on my own. And you have to do your own research from living here, because I guess that's wherever, you know, you get your homegrown history and you learn the history of where you're from. So we didn't get a lot of this. So learning about The Troubles, it's so dense and it's so intertwined, um, and goes so deep and for so many hundreds of years that it's hard to wrap it up and sum it up in a really short and concise way.
Laura: So I was trying to for people who maybe don't know, I'm sure that we know a bit. We know about the potato FAM and we know about Bloody Sunday and stuff. But how do these things kind of wrap into how we got to this situation in this film? How we got to these people who are starving themselves for a cause that they so deeply believe in. And from what I was researching for The Trouble specifically, it's three decades long. And I know that the underlying story goes way, way deeper. But this particular situation started around 1969 between the Nationalists, who mainly they self identified as Irish or Roman Catholic, and they wanted a free, united Ireland. And you have the Unionists who self identified as British or Protestant, and they wanted to continue to be part of the UK. And so in Northern Ireland, you had specific services that were provided to Catholics and Protestants. And it started to become obviously unfair, where you had this disconnect where some people are being treated better and other people are getting neglected in a way. And so they're trying to take back their civil rights. And this is what ended up leading to violence. And when the British came in and tried to stop the violence, it just escalated the whole situation. So we're kind of in the middle of that whole conflict because this takes place in 1981.
Ryan: Yeah.
Laura: Right. And Bobby Sands is a very, uh I don't want to say famous, because he's not famous, but.
Ryan: He'S a known figure at that time. He's seen as like a leading head.
Laura: Yeah, this went on until about 1998, where you had the Good Friday Agreement, where people were actually finally able to talk and figure out how to come to a peaceful agreement and without violence, and then how they could govern themselves. Ah, which is what ended up happening. But Bobby Sands himself had a super rough upbringing, and he was involved with assaults by Unionist, uh, paramilitaries, and local Protestant gangs. So that's why he ended up volunteering with the IRA in, like, 1972. Uh, and it's interesting because I'll talk about it when we get to our first it's such a serious I'm like yeah, serious story. Because I'm like, when we get to our first dick scene, I will talk about, uh, the political status of the prisoners. It's so messed up.
Ryan: Yeah, it's kind of rough.
Laura: It's a hard one. It's a hard one. But it was going to happen anyway in what our podcast is. And I do like to make jokes and I do like to make things funny. And I'll probably going to laugh. Just that's how I am.
Ryan: Because the thing is, eventually we're going to cover Schindler's List.
Laura: Absolutely.
Ryan: We're going to cover we had to get come and see. We're going to cover a bunch of films that there is no way in hell we can never amuse ourselves with what we're watching.
Laura: No.
Ryan: Because of the films achieve very well their goal.
Laura: Yeah, absolutely.
Ryan: Because they tell the story in an unflinching manner, the way that it's meant.
Laura: To be seen, and the way that we categorize full frontal in cinema. We will always find these types of films where it is gritty, it is dark, vulnerable, unflinching scenes. And, um, obviously Steve McQueen did not want to shy away from the horrors and the inhumanity in this situation. Which is why we get it why we get that in this film. But, uh, it's funny.
Laura: But yeah, I did kind of want to talk a little bit more about history during this one. Because we don't have jokes.
Ryan: No, we don't have jokes. Yeah. Also, I think we'll cover the dick scenes, m, I guess, for the rest of it. That's kind of up to you to watch it. Because there's no amount of commentary that I feel personally, I can add to it. Um, it feels like conjecture feels irrelevant if I add any extra commentary to what's being depicted in the film. I think the film does a fantastic job of depicting well, I just wanted.
Laura: To explain a little bit more about the history of the situation because especially for me, who even I studied history, and that was a part of my degree, and I studied it for fun. And these are still things that it's hard to comprehend growing up in America. These aren't things that you're taught or that we learned about. So I know that there's probably, uh, quite a few people that didn't grow up where you did that don't know the story. I'm telling a crappy version of this story. I know that someone could probably do it much better than me, but I'm doing my best.
Ryan: Yeah, you've already added, um there's a lot to unravel there. I would suggest that, uh, because this isn't the first time we've brought up The Troubles or the IRA in either one of our podcasts, funnily enough.
Laura: Yeah. Because I think there's wasn't there two other films that we've done that involved the IRA. The Crying Game.
Ryan: We did The Crying Game that involves them directly, but for the most part, there's people who were in the IRA who don't really give any credit to that film whatsoever. It's just that it's a drama.
Laura: Right.
Ryan: Um, but no, the other thing we brought up was Alan, uh, Clark's film, Elephant.
Laura: Okay. Okay. So we haven't done it. So it was just one other film so far.
Ryan: Yeah. Well, that was a TV movie that Danny Boyle, uh, produced. That's why we brought it up. Um, okay. I like that film. Fair, um, amount.
Laura: Um, uh, um, but this movie isn't about the Troubles. No, but I directly connected with it, obviously. But this is a personal, very human story about, I don't know, inhumanity.
Ryan: I know you're explaining the history behind the situation and what we're seeing depicted in the film and stuff like that. Maybe people will be like, well, what have you got to say about it?
Laura: And things, what do you have to say about it?
Ryan: Well, end of the day, I tend to keep quiet about things like that. Certainly stuff that I felt like I grew up around. Not whether I wasn't involved, but it was around. It was very much a very kind of, uh, present conflict when I was growing up. But I guess, uh, as I've gotten older, and I guess, uh, there's a lot of people out there who probably should learn this little bit of advice, but I tend to keep my mouth shut as I realize the brevity of that situation, or any situation.
Laura: Okay.
Ryan: I think you should just appreciate how deep it goes, and that sometimes you don't need to say anything about it. But I mean, in terms of Thatcher, of the villain of the piece.
Laura: The villain.
Ryan: Yeah. But I've always kind of said this in regards to Thatcher, but, uh, the only reason I'd ever believe in religion would be to affirm that Thatcher is in hell. These people are made to feel completely dehumanized, um, because this is I mean, we're in the middle of a war. That's exactly what we are. These are effectively prisoners, uh, of war.
Laura: Yes.
Ryan: Yeah. Um, and they are standing by their beliefs. They are standing by what they believe in. Um, and they are made to feel less than human.
Laura: Yeah.
Ryan: Because their rights were taken away.
Laura: Absolutely.
Laura: So our very first I'm going to just jump into the first penis scene, because that comes in very early on. I mean, in all honesty, the entire film is a penis scene. There's so many obviously, they're all connected, and they are all as important as the one from before, but the first one comes in at about eleven minutes, 28 seconds. So this scene is where a prisoner is just asking to wear his own clothes because he is a political prisoner.
Ryan: Yes.
Laura: And so typically, up until this point, political prisoners were placed under a special category status. So that acknowledged that they have a political status. And those prisoners were granted the right to wear their own clothes. They had free association, and they had other, uh, with other special category prisoners. Right. So they were able to talk to other political prisoners, and they were able to wear their own clothes, and they could organize their own educational, recreational activities, and they had access to visits, know family, friends, whoever. And they also were able to have parcels once a week. So this was all up until Margaret, uh, Thatcher, essentially. So when uh, you see this scene when you have this prisoner asking, why can't I wear my own clothes? I am a political prisoner. I have status. Um, he is stripped of those rights that they used to have.
Ryan: Yeah.
Laura: Uh, Bobby Sands was in prison before this particular incident, before this imprisonment. And he also was able to have those rights, which are now, at the point of this film, non existent.
Ryan: Yeah. Stripped away. Completely stripped away.
Laura: Yeah. And you can hear that in the speech, I think, just, uh, before this scene. And, um, it's Margaret Thatcher having a speech where basically she says there's no political prisoners. Crime, uh, is not about politics. Crime is crime. And people who commit political crimes are criminals. So they will get no status. And, um, this was kind of a way for them to give extended detention without actually giving charges to people in order to kind of get more convictions on suspected IRA members. So treating them less than human, giving them no rights. And they had to find a way to be heard and find a way to kind of take back control.
Ryan: Yeah.
Laura: Because you don't have right. They have no control over anything except themselves. Well, if they don't have any control of the outside situation no, they don't.
Ryan: They are getting information fed to them as they're in the prison. But I would say that because of the protests and the way that they'd done the protests before, um, they found that they just were not working. So they're battering their heads against a brick wall, effectively, because it was a.
Laura: Blanket dirty protest that they were doing at the time when this first prisoner comes.
Ryan: No wash blanket.
Laura: Oh, the no wash blanket. So they were refusing to wear the prison garb and they said, well, we're going to go naked or we're going to wear the blankets.
Ryan: Yeah.
Laura: We're not doing that. They don't want to be put in this uniform as a prisoner because that's not what they believed that they were there for.
Ryan: No.
Laura: And, um, they wouldn't wash, so they weren't washing themselves.
Ryan: Mhm, I guess when we follow the first I mean, he's the first prisoner we see.
Laura: Yeah. And he's our main character for, uh, a third of the film.
Ryan: Yeah. Because the beginning of the movie is focused on the guard and his, um I can't remember the guard's name. Um, but we focus on the guard's daily routine. Effectively, when he gets up in the morning and he goes in. The one thing I did, obviously, I didn't like it, but I appreciated its inclusion in the movie was the fact that just before he goes to drive in his car, he looks under his car to see if a bomb has been placed there. He's looking up and down the street to make sure it's quiet. Because these people are targets absolutely the entire time. And certainly from M speaking to, uh, ex veterans and stuff like that, who were over there? Um, yeah, they were like, I need to put a mirror on the top of a stick and have to look under my car every time before I right.
Laura: And that's regular part of life that is part of your daily routine.
Ryan: Yes.
Laura: Which is horrifying.
Ryan: You have to do that. Yeah. It's very scary. And I love that even just a simple shot of someone turning the ignition in a car is dealt with so much weight.
Laura: And you have the wife, because of.
Ryan: That, watching from the window just in absolute horror.
Laura: Which I wouldn't be that close to the window if I'm being honest, if I was afraid that my husband's car was going to blow up. No, dude, you're in the line of fire.
Ryan: Yeah.
Laura: Back up.
Ryan: Not great. Not great.
Ryan: But we were talking about the dehumanization of these people. And this man is after what's written down on the clipboard, is that he's non conforming. Right. Um, then he's forced to strip down.
Laura: Yes.
Ryan: And basically that's it. A lot of these prisoners spend more time naked than ever, really? In clothing?
Laura: 100%.
Ryan: Yeah. They're always pretty much completely naked. And when they are forced through certain drills, they are completely naked. Um, so he's given a blanket. He's effectively marched he's marched through he's paraded around naked to his cell. Um, and pretty much yeah. He then is put in his cell.
Laura: M. With his super cool cellmate.
Ryan: Yes.
Laura: Which right off the bat, could you imagine when he walks into his cell where he's going to be living for the next six years?
Ryan: Mhm.
Laura: And this guy and I don't know the timeline, of course, because it does get a little bit wibbly wobbly.
Ryan: The timeline is really interesting once you start to watch the movie and things.
Laura: Start to unravel, but to a viewer, within seconds, this guy's cellmates got his hand down his pants and shitting into his hand and spreading it all over the cell wall. Within moments, it's like, hello friend.
Ryan: Yes.
Laura: Hi, I'm Greg.
Ryan: I mean, all of the give me.
Laura: Just 1 second while I take a dump.
Ryan: All of the walls are already covered in full brown?
Laura: Yes, full brown, top to bottom, dried. I think they do such a good job as well of making, uh, everything you can feel and it's like you can smell it. It is ah, just horrible. So, yeah, brown walls, poopoo walls. And there's food. There's old food on the ground. There's maggots in the food.
Ryan: They're basically making it as inhospitable for everybody there as they can.
Laura: Yeah. Not just for them, they're making it.
Ryan: Bad for the guards and for the people in the prison.
Laura: They're taking everyone down.
Ryan: Yeah. Um, but then also there's the piss protests as well.
Laura: They're fun. They use all the old food and.
Ryan: Make a mashed potato dam.
Laura: A mashed potato dam. And then they take all their pea from the day and. Pour it on the other side of the dam underneath the door of their cell. And everyone not everybody, but all the people that are participating in this protest, like, put their pee pee under the door. And so all of their pee is just flooding the hallway to where you get that interesting long, long shot of the guard. I assume he's a guard that's just made to clean up, I'm assuming.
Ryan: Yes.
Laura: Just splashing kind of a cleaning solution on the ground and then sweeping all of the pea down the hallway. Yes, a really long shot.
Ryan: It's all one single continuous shot. There's a lot of those in this movie as well, though. Um, but there's this one single continuous shot. The man comes down with a bunch of bleach and he's like, bleaching the floor and then he brushes it away. Um, immediately after I saw it, I started going like, oh, that's like because there's a lot of maintaining that level of realism by just generating you restrict yourself and the amount of cinematic techniques that you use to try and maintain a level of realism in your storytelling. And this is kind of more noticeable in that one continuous, single take conversation he has with, uh, fassbender has with the Priest at one point in the story and certainly with this, the minute I looked at this and he's, like, sweeping the floor. I'm like, oh, that's like that bit in, uh, Alberto D, where we just focus on the menial everyday tasks of this maid, um, as she's just going about her business, where it's like, it's instilling a level of realism into the storytelling, which effectively ends up being at the detriment of the audience. Because you're just watching someone do something that you would do most days yourself.
Laura: It's almost just giving you like a quiet little break. Because the film is so relentless. Yeah. Uh, so relentless. So you just are watching, almost in a soothing way, this guy clean piss off the floor just for a few moments until absolute hell breaks loose again, as it does mhm. So there is at about 20 minutes, 30 seconds. My times are all kind of I guess times are always different, um, wherever you watch the film, but you know how it goes.
Laura: But this is the second penis scene where our first character, that we are basically introduced to, our first prisoner that we're introduced to.
Ryan: The first two prisoners we're introduced to.
Laura: Yeah, the poopoo one, and then the new prisoner.
Ryan: Also, I will point out, they are not the only people who are covering the walls.
Laura: No.
Ryan: Everyone's taking part in it.
Laura: Yeah. Because they're all a part of this protest. Yes. But they're going into it's a visitation day, so they are actually getting dressed, putting on clothes. But the I don't want to call him poopoo prisoner. I know he has a name, but he's taking his trousers that he was given and he's ripping a hole. It's like in the crotch area of the trousers. Don't, uh, know what he's doing that for. But the original prisoner had written a note.
Ryan: Yes.
Laura: And um, he'd put it in his mouth, I believe.
Ryan: Yeah.
Laura: Kind of tiny, um, wrapped up really small.
Ryan: Yeah. Uh, they seem to be writing on pages of the Bible. I'm assuming they're being given, uh, bibles that are in their cells.
Laura: Right.
Ryan: So I think they're writing on the thin bits of paper that are in those Bibles.
Laura: So they're trying to find ways to communicate with the outside world and get notice out. And then for their friends and family to bring them news as well. But you have to be really careful about it.
Ryan: Yes.
Laura: Um, but that's our second scene. So them just kind of getting dressed.
Ryan: They're getting dressed. So you see everything as it's all completely wide, but yeah. No, they're dressing effectively. Simply. They're dressing for visitation. And what you do witness is that they're just swapping contraband from their relatives, um, between their, uh, separate orifices yes, that's the nicest way of putting it, really.
Laura: Yeah. The pooh prisoner ends up getting some sort of radio. Right. Isn't that what he gets from his wife girlfriend, friend?
Ryan: Yes. She had it hidden inside her. And then he hides it inside himself.
Laura: Using the her private pocket. And then he put it inside his private pocket.
Ryan: Yes. Because that's why he put the hole in his crotch, because it was very.
Laura: Familiar with his butt.
Ryan: So he knows ah, what he's doing. Yeah. So I'm assuming he's been the delegated, um, hider, I suppose, if that's the way that that's going to be.
Laura: Do you remember that scene when those two prisoners are back in their cell and the guy pulls out a picture? He unfolds a picture of his girlfriend, I assume.
Ryan: Yeah.
Laura: And you see the cell. It's the same cell with the pooh walls.
Ryan: And he blesses, like the maggots squirming between his friends.
Laura: Smell the room. You can smell that place from your living room. And maggots on the floor. Old food piss everywhere. Poo poo walls. And the guy starts masturbating.
Ryan: Yeah.
Laura: Bless his heart.
Ryan: Yes.
Laura: There's some spark left in, um, him after all of this.
Ryan: He's a champion.
Laura: I was flabbergasted.
Ryan: Yeah.
Laura: So at about 28 minutes, 22 seconds, this is when we finally see Michael Fassbender.
Ryan: Yeah.
Laura: We're interested, uh, one third of the way into the film, we see Bobby Sands. We see Fassbender as the guards are dragging him forcefully and violently from his cell to clean him up.
Ryan: Well, they're doing it to everyone.
Laura: No, they're doing it to everyone. But this is when we finally meet him, because it is time to pressure wash those poop walls to cut their hair.
Ryan: Well, this is where the timeline and, um, our focus starts to shift what we've seen so far. We see some of it repeat, but from a slightly different perspective, or certainly our focus shifts from the two prisoners that we've been quite intimate with already to then obviously shifting our perspective to Bobby Sands, who is the remainder of the focus in this film.
Laura: Correct.
Ryan: Obviously, quite importantly, um, as he is the one who goes on a hunger strike and sees it through to the end. So this is where I kind of see I'm like, you know what? This film is very clever in what it does. Well, the thing is, it repeats certain moments. Like, one of the first shots we see in the movie is the guard with his bloody hands in the sink. We see this again, and we see why his hands were bloody. And it's immediately after they've roughly manhandled, uh, Bobby Sands, and they're scrubbing him hard with like a hard brush, and they're cutting his hair and they're like, cutting into his scalp as they're cutting his hair, um, punching him. Well, yeah, the thing is, just because of the way that the shots have worked in the order in which they put them in again, this film is all about depicting the emotional weight and the images that it captures, which is something that I just think this film does very, very well. And to say, like, okay, this is a conventional way of telling the story is no less emotional than, uh, it probably holds a candle to films that are done in a more traditional way.
Laura: Yeah. This is not a traditional telling of a story.
Ryan: No. But it still holds so much emotional weight.
Laura: Maybe more so. Yeah, maybe more so. Yeah. Uh, that is, uh, one of those scenes where you have a physical reaction to what's happening. I mean, you do most of the time, especially when things get quite violent. And these men are naked. And incredibly, I don't want to say that they are vulnerable, because that's not who these men are. You know what I mean?
Ryan: No.
Laura: But they are in a vulnerable position where they are naked and they are hungry, and they've been abused and neglected, and they still hold strong to what they're believing in.
Ryan: But they're soldiers. Yeah, they're soldiers. Um, and end of the day, like, first and foremost, they are soldiers. They are fighting every day, every moment. They might not be in the field, but they are still soldiers. And they are fighting every day against a common enemy.
Laura: So them dragging him out of his cell and all the things that we'd mentioned is rough. And they have him in the water. They're pressing him under the water in the bath, scrubbing him with that awful broom. And uh, it's awful, but they're doing it to everyone down the block.
Ryan: Yeah.
Laura: So trying to reassert some sort of authority that they have, uh, because these.
Ryan: Boys that's the thing. There's this moment. And then we meet Bobby Sands. Right. Um, and he becomes our focus for the rest of the film. And whether you want to kind of use the idea of that there's a protagonist I like to kind of use the concept that this is where our narrative focus now starts and it's where it's going to end.
Ryan: Which is something I just I think this is I mean, we watched Blood Simple recently as well, right? And there's a lot of stuff that the Coen brothers do, but obviously with Blood Simple. Blood simple is their first movie, effectively, um, where they remind you, don't get too attached to this character, because we'll probably kill him. You know what I mean? So they always put really interesting character actors in these roles, and then it's like, oh wait, no, he's dead. And your focus ends up shifting. And then you're presented with effectively who your hero character is, right, in the.
Laura: Traditional sense to take that long to introduce, because as the synopsis is trying to put forth, is that this is the story of Bobby Sands, which it doesn't tell it that way.
Ryan: No, but then the film does a good thing of that so that you're not instantly presented to Bobby immediately, and that you're giving a well rounded overview of what's going on. So you watch the guard, what he has to do every day. He's punishing people every day, and he has to deal with the weight of being involved with this conflict because he's a warden or a guard at the prison where these people are being housed. Right.
Laura: Mhm.
Ryan: And he's also Irish. Yeah. So he's also having to deal with the weight of that. And then we meet prisoners who are being introduced into the prison. So we get to see this gradual makeup and this gradual kind of progression of how there's these people, these people and these people, and this is how this kind of works, uh, out. And then we finally see, okay, here's the abuse, here's the beatings, here's the illicit searches, here's the strip searches. I mean, there's that horrible bit with the riot cops and their 39 minutes.
Laura: I believe this is about 39 minutes into the um, film, where they do call in the riot squad and they're hyping themselves up to do what they're about to do.
Ryan: Yes.
Laura: Bringing these prisoners out one by one, totally naked, beating the absolute hell out of them on their way to get cavity searched by one other guard. So that's another full frontal scene that's uh, really awful because and you knew.
Ryan: It, it's very cleverly shot, though. It's all handheld in a one shot.
Laura: He has a bit, uh, of I don't know if it's like brick or wood or something, and a mirror sitting on top of it, and he places it on the floor.
Ryan: That was like foam, whatever. Yeah.
Laura: The guard spits on it and cleans it up, and it's on the floor. And I go, oh no. And I've seen this movie before, but I forgot this part. And you were like, what is that? What do you mean? Oh, no, I'm like they're going to be searching someone from underneath mhm. They pull these guys out one by one and press them, make them squat over this mirror and they're cavity searching them. This guard has on a rubber glove and he is getting deep in there and using the same hand, putting his poopoo gloves in their prisoners mouths and checking them in their mouths for any sort of contraband.
Ryan: Basically. Yeah. They're looking for contraband.
Laura: It is awful. And these men are fighting back as hard as they possibly can, but they are getting the shit kicked out of them.
Ryan: Yes.
Laura: And it's one after the other, after the other. And you said it was just this one kind of handheld shot.
Ryan: Yeah. So it starts off, it keeps on whipping back and forth. So it looks in front, then it looks behind, then it looks back in front again. And it's following because we're following the prisoner that we saw introduced into the prison, who said, I want to wear my own clothes. And we follow him. And this is where the transition from obviously him to Bobby Sands starts. Or this is where this occurs to where we don't really see them anymore. And we focus on, uh, Michael Fassbender's character for the remainder. Um, but yeah, I mean, what precedes that is obviously the scene with the priest, which I feel like has to be seen to be believed. Me just telling you. It's like a 28 page, um, scene of dialogue between, obviously, Bobby Sands and the priest, who is also who is also on their side. Um, right.
Laura: Yeah.
Ryan: So he's kind of impartial.
Laura: So this is a 17 minutes static shot, 17 minutes no cut. Between Bobby Sands and Father Dom, who is, by the way, played by Liam Cunningham, who was Davos. Do you remember him from Game of Thrones? Yes, davos. So good.
Ryan: He's a fucking powerhouse, this guy.
Laura: Great.
Ryan: Yeah. So good.
Laura: Love.
Ryan: And the thing is, they work this scene to an absolute M minuscule amount of precision.
Laura: Liam Cunningham and Michael Fassbender moved in together so that they could practice this scene to death. So they were basically living together and just doing it, practicing it, rehearsing it. Rehearsing it. And, uh, Fastbender said that, uh, they only did five takes wow.
Ryan: Okay.
Laura: To get this done. Because they'd rehearsed it, uh twelve to 15 times a day.
Ryan: Wow. Okay. Um yeah. No, I think it works. It's very effective.
Laura: Oh, it's great. And it was just a lovely, interesting and enlightening conversation between these two people where the priest is saying, you're in no sort of condition to be making this sort of decision to go on a hunger strike.
Ryan: No.
Laura: He goes, It didn't work too well last time.
Ryan: No.
Laura: So why would you be doing this again? And him just he's not trying to convince, uh, Father Dom. He's just plainly stating his reasons and why he has to lead this charge, why he has to do this?
Ryan: Yeah, well, he said his reasoning behind it was that the morality of what they were doing set in. And when one of them got sick, they were like, no, we need to stop doing this. But the thing is, because they've tried everything else up until this point, the only way anyone is seemingly going to listen is if one of them takes their own life in doing so. And they obviously set up this plan where one person will start, and then two weeks later, someone else will start. And then they'll start this domino effect. So effectively, the way they see it is that people will be dropping like flies over the course of months, even years. Um, and obviously, Bobby Sand is going to be, uh, leading the charge on that.
Laura: My God. Honestly, we were talking well, we weren't talking a lot during the movie when he said that they had 75 other members that were going to that volunteered for the hunger strike. And I said, My God. I'd be like, can I please be in the 70s? Give me number 75. I do not want to be the first.
Ryan: Yeah. The thing is, though, and I will say this like you're talking about being wanting to be one of the last.
Laura: Because you never get there.
Ryan: Well, I mean, these men are very courageous.
Laura: Oh, my God. Of course, Mickey. I'm trying to make one joke. Yeah, because it sucks.
Ryan: We can't really make any jokes. But the thing is, they're very courageous, these men who went through what they did for their cause.
Laura: Oh, I'm not saying anything other than that.
Ryan: But it is, um yeah, this is one of the few scenes as well. And it's so good. And this is one of the few scenes as well, where you get to extrapolate a lot of the information about the current climate and what's going on, obviously, outside of the prison. And also kind of like their thoughts and their feelings because you know, they're prisoners. You know they're protesting. You know they're doing this. But you really need to get a good understanding as to just, like, from their own level, like why they're doing what they're doing. And he does a very good job of explaining it. And there's this back and forth. And then obviously, he tells that story, um, about when he was a kid and how he was treated unfairly when he was a kid because he wasn't from Belfast, he wasn't Northern Irish. And it's like there's the story of the dough and all this sort of thing. And it's just really well put together.
Laura: 100% could see that done in a theater class.
Ryan: Uh, yes. Like I say, that's the first time I'd ever seen that. And I would be like, that's rivaling any good piece of theater, just seeing that. Yeah, it's insanely good. I'm just going to turn my page. But, uh, yeah.
Ryan: After the scene with the priest, it's the hunger strike. And we see it and it goes fast. It goes well, what do you mean in terms of time? Are you talking about like I do think deterioration.
Laura: Yeah. Well, obviously, he would deteriorate very fast. But in the film, it also kind of happens in a fast the movie is not very long.
Ryan: No.
Laura: See, it go the way it goes and goes. It feels very fast to me.
Ryan: I would probably disagree there. And I guess because obviously it's the first time seeing it, it looks excruciating.
Laura: Oh, yeah.
Ryan: Because it goes through every single little individual detail. From the bed sores, his protrusions, from the skin like illnesses, his, uh, convulsions. He starts to hallucinate and starts to see himself as a young boy. Um, and then this is where you see a lot of ah, that.
Laura: Juxtaposition.
Ryan: Juxtaposed. You see a lot of those you see a lot of that juxtaposed imagery of the birds and stuff in the woods and how you're meant to feel about what he's seeing and why he's seeing it and things like that. And I guess you could extrapolate thematically what that means from a visual standpoint as to why that happens. But, uh, yeah, that stuff near the end of the movie is, uh, incredibly brutal and very sad.
Laura: It is.
Ryan: Um.
Laura: You all have watched this movie.
Ryan: So, you know, going, what are you doing?
Laura: Stop now, because I'm m going to.
Ryan: We'Ve already ended the ruined it.
Laura: No, it's not ruined, because you got to see it. But the whole death scene looks incredible. It's what you were talking about with the images juxtaposed back and forth with the birds in the tree. He looks awful. They did an amazing job. He did an amazing job. Um, but how he got those death tears is nothing other than bravo. Genuinely.
Ryan: His death mask is fucking haunting.
Laura: It is nightmare inducing. I'm, um like, he looks dead.
Ryan: It's on par with yeah, it's on par with the close ups in Come and See, which you've not seen.
Laura: No.
Ryan: And that film is probably the scariest non horror film I've ever seen.
Laura: Well, great. Can't wait to talk about that.
Laura: Bobby Sands was on a hunger strike for 66 days before he passed away.
Ryan: Yeah. Fucking horrible. And I think there's interviews and stuff with the casting crew. We watched a bunch of making of stuff. And, uh, some of the interviews we've got on the DVD that we watched, they're very long, like 40 minutes long. But some of the little excerpts that they came in with was, uh uh, Steve McQueen recites seeing that stuff on the news originally. Um yeah.
Laura: What made him want to tell this story? Because it's an interesting person to tell this story.
Ryan: Yes. Um, the background to the making of this movie, I think, is quite interesting. It's also beguiling as well. Um, but I also feel like the film story is important, is an important story to tell. But he recites, like seeing the news broadcast and they talk about Bobby Sands and obviously if it's being broadcast on British TV, these men will be seen as the villains. They will be seen to the contrary, and they are the enemy. Right. That's how they're going to be depicted in the media. Um, but he was like, oh, what's that number next to his name? And they say, that was the number of days, um, he was on hunger strike four. So it's almost as if they were following each of these men and putting their number of days they were still on hunger strike four.
Laura: As a little boy, you wouldn't know what was going on. And he'd said, I thought that was how old they were.
Ryan: Certainly not as an eleven year old. No. It'd be very difficult to understand and certainly yeah, I mean, there's a lot of things that as you grow older, you wish you understood them more fully. But as you do get older, it does end up becoming even more tragic and uh uh, beggars belief.
Laura: It's interesting how he said that the thought of a hunger strike and that entire situation related to him as a child. I find it interesting that he felt a relation to this because he said that the only power that he had over his parents was to refrain from eating. And he felt a weird kind of connection with him as a child to these men who are putting their lives on the line.
Ryan: Yes.
Laura: Or something that they believed in. So it's kind of a weird connection that he made there, but it stuck with him. No matter how weird it is. It followed him through his entire life to the point of him making the jump to make a film, his first film about it.
Ryan: Yeah. I mean, I would also kind of point out that as a filmmaker, you have to find some sort of tie to the material and how you make that particular moment in itself, like visual, and you're able to connect what you're showing and elicit an emotional response. Because you have to justify everything that you're doing. You can't just tell that story and be like, well, that's the story. You have to justify your reasoning for depicting it in the first place. And because of its cultural and its historical importance, he's also a British filmmaker. He has to make sure that he does that correctly with a level attacked indecency because he's a British filmmaker. Mhm. And it's like, uh yeah, it's just you just yeah, you just, you just.
Laura: You gotta be careful.
Ryan: You gotta be careful. And yeah, I mean that's it's, it's, it's important. It's important to get that correct. Because if you fuck that up, you fucked up for everything, you know, it's like it's never going to be told again. So you just have to make sure that you do it correctly, and I think he nailed it, personally. I think he just got it done really well. He did it right, and I think his team up with Fastbender and is obviously kind of, uh, incurred over the next few films anyway.
Laura: Come a long and lasting friendship.
Ryan: Oh, they're so good. They're so good together. So yeah, no, I think he's done well.
Laura: So, uh, Steve McQueen and Michael Fassbender met when Fassbender auditioned for Hunger, and Steve McQueen said he didn't like him at first because he thought he was too cocky. And so it wasn't until the third time that they actually met when they bonded, because Michael Fassbender, uh, took Steve McQueen on a ride on his motorcycle and Steve McQueen said that he called it their officer in a gentleman moment.
Ryan: M. That's how they became best of mean. That's nice.
Laura: It's lovely.
Ryan: Yeah, that's a nice thing.
Laura: It's a nice thing.
Ryan: Yeah. And then don't romance.
Laura: Um, so I wanted to throw a little couple of things at you before we gave our final ratings and wrap this bad boy up.
Ryan: Okay.
Laura: Uh, Michael Fassbender went on a ten week diet in which he lost 14 kilos.
Ryan: Yes. Uh, he looks awful.
Laura: He looks really bad.
Ryan: He looks awful. We were watching the movie, and you see him and you see how gaunt and thin and kind of drawn out and stuff, and you see it when you see it in his face, it's just like that death mask. I'm mhm just like, okay. It's, um, fucking horrible. Like the blood's drained from his body. Like everything is just he's just losing his soul.
Laura: Yeah.
Ryan: Because, um, you brought up the machinist. I did as well. And I'm trying to remember what was the reasoning behind Christian Bale appearance. Uh, and I was like, oh, is it because he was like, he couldn't sleep. At least in this movie, it's justified. You know what I mean? There's a reason as to why he takes this very extreme, uh, transformation. Because in reality, that's what would happen.
Laura: Yeah. He was consuming about 900 calories in a day. He was eating berries, nuts, and sardines, and he was doing yoga. He walked four and a half miles a day. And eventually he couldn't sleep. And he just stopped talking to his friends and just got real dark. And this is his third film only his third film, uh, which the first was 300. That was his first film, huh?
Ryan: Was he in 300? Is he one of the main Spartans in that movie?
Laura: Or is he yeah, give me a second and I'll come up with his name. Well, what was with an F?
Ryan: Well, uh, what was the second film he was in?
Laura: Believe it was a movie called angel.
Ryan: Oh, yeah.
Laura: I don't know, because I think Hunger from 300.
Ryan: Okay. Yeah. We haven't watched 300 in a while. I think the last time I tried to watch 300, I think I got halfway through watching it on a TV, and I got bored, um, as you do with that sort of drivel.
Laura: Angel obviously wasn't a terribly popular film.
Ryan: No. But yeah, it exists. Yeah.
Ryan: Okay.
Laura: So in terms of awards, steve McQueen won the camera door at can in 2008. And that is an award that's given to first time filmmakers.
Ryan: Huh. Good for him.
Laura: And he won, uh, BAFTA for special achievement by a British director. Good for their first feature film. So he won two awards for his first.
Laura: So M, anything else you wanted to add before we get into our ratings?
Ryan: Um, David Holmes, who did the music, he's done the music for, like, the Oceans movies. The music's actually very affecting in this. You know, there's not any heists in hunger. There's no heists or anything. Um, that was my only other things.
Laura: In terms of visibility and context.
Ryan: Right.
Laura: Go for it, Ryan.
Ryan: Really? You got to make me fucking zero to five.
Laura: I can go first. So for me, in terms of visibility and context, it gets a five. It would be strange to not have the nudity in this film because it helps to highlight the inhumanity that's going. You know, Steve McQueen wanted to tell this story. He wanted to show how cruel, how brutal this situation. Um, know, the men were protesting. They had to wear blankets. And naturally, it just makes sense. Their strip searched, their cavity searched. It goes to show how out of control that they were, out of control they felt in order to undertake such a protest.
Ryan: Well, here's the thing. They're also refusing to wear clothes. That is also one of the main primary burners to the fact that they're naked.
Laura: Yeah. I mean, it's a last resort, using your body as a weapon.
Ryan: You are the property of the state.
Laura: They wanted their political status back, and they used everything that they possibly could use. Their original protest wasn't working, so they had to step it up. I mean, whether or not you agree with this situation is up to you. But it is what happened. So to not have the kind of nudity included would make this a very weird movie.
Ryan: It would take you out of the realism aspects of it.
Laura: Yeah.
Ryan: It would feel like it was sugarcoating it. And I feel like that's not what this film deserved. No.
Laura: And it's not how Steve McQueen wanted to highlight this situation.
Ryan: No. I think the script that they put together him with, uh, Enda Walsh is yeah. Yeah. It's a phenomenally, well written piece of film. So good.
Laura: What about you?
Ryan: In terms of my visibility and sure. Well, I mean, I'm going to go with a loved I loved how kind of unflinching it was because yeah. You know, I love a piece of realist cinema, uh, something that just does not hide.
Laura: Yeah.
Ryan: And it just it wears it and it works for the storytelling. And it's a motive. It makes you feel something.
Laura: Oh, yeah. Because you're just looking at these people be brutalized and just how, uh, you're showing it naked. And it's not just them being naked. You're showing this raw situation. And how would you feel?
Ryan: There is a sense of style told within the storytelling. And whether or not you either fall on the fence of just like, well, tell the story, don't pander to certain artistic decisions that I feel like are made, but I feel like those artistic decisions, um, lend themselves to the very core values that are in the know.
Laura: I like how we're led through this, how yeah.
Ryan: I love how it flips on its head a little bit as well. By the time our perspective changes and what we're seeing, I feel like Sweet.
Laura: Steve just puts his hand out, and I take his hand and he takes me he takes me on a story.
Ryan: But here is the thing, is that this was my first time watching Hunger. Loved it. Um, when it comes to his other films, I am concerned because I have seen Shame, and I don't know if I like Shame, so I don't know if this is consistent.
Laura: Save it, Henderson.
Ryan: I'm just saying this is going to be the thing.
Laura: I'm blown away that you liked this movie. Okay, hold on. We have to finish this. Okay?
Ryan: Yeah.
Laura: Tell me what your rating for the film is.
Ryan: Oh, five stars. Yeah.
Laura: Okay. I gave it four and a half. I gave it four, typically, because it's one of those things. For me, a five star status means that I'm going to watch this movie again, and I want to watch it again. I don't want to watch this movie again.
Ryan: Oh, I would watch it again, but.
Laura: It doesn't mean that it's not a fantastic and incredible film. And I love, um, a film that can make you feel it's one of m things that can make me physically move. It's a great feeling, uh, even though you're shown some really horrific things. But, yeah, five stars, for me, is a tough one.
Ryan: But it's one of the most important British films of the last 50 years. Boom. Yeah. I think it's a very fortunate, um, set circumstances that have put these people into this place to tell this story at this time. Here's the thing. I've not seen Twelve Years A Slave yet, either. Shame really kind of colored my opinion of his work.
Laura: Okay.
Ryan: Well, I'm interested in hunger has become the, uh, bar, the equalizer, in a way.
Laura: So I'm looking forward to seeing, uh, I'm terrified how it changes, because maybe your appreciation for Sweet Steve is going to change the whole it's going to flip the script. You never know.
Ryan: I mean, the thing is, I got Hunger from the minute it started to when it ended, and I fucking loved it. And then the problem with Shame is it just didn't pull me in. But, uh, maybe watching it, which is.
Laura: Mind blowing to me. That shame. Uh, okay, stop talking about shame. We're not talking about shame right now. We are talking about hunger. And yeah, that's our rating. This is it. If you guys ever want to see what we're watching, you can go. We have all the links on our Instagram to our letterbox pages. If you're ever just curious, um, you probably get some insight into what we're doing next. A little hint, um, on our letterbox page. And obviously you can follow us on social media because that is where you're going to find out what movie we're doing next. Obviously in this limited series we're doing of Mcqueeners, mhm, pretty obvious what we're doing next. Pretty obvious what we're doing after that.
Ryan: He's not got a vast filmography. So obviously you kind of understand that we're only going to be covering so.
Laura: Many of these films to watch them in a weekend. So there's that. And with that being said, uh, coming to you from a very comfortable place. And thank God it's not the Maze prison I have been Laura and I've been Ryan. Thanks, guys. Just, uh, get ready. Get tucked in, Mcqueeners. It's happening.
Ryan: Yeah, get tucked in, M. It's going to get more uncomfortable from here.
Laura: Sure is. Bye.