Dir. Steve McQueen, UK/Ireland, 2008, 96 mins
Cast: Michael Fassbender, Stuart Graham, Liam Cunningham
Review by Carol Allen
Although dealing with the same story material as Some Mother’s Son (1996) about Northern Ireland hunger strike leader Bobby Sands, played here by Fassbender, this debut movie from Turner prize winning artist McQueen brings in many more angles on the story of the Blanket protest and the hunger strike.
The protest in Belfast’s Maze Prison in 1991 was to do with the republican prisoners’ refusal to wear prison uniform on the grounds that they were political prisoners and therefore entitled to wear their own clothes. Until their demands were met, they went naked apart from prison blankets, trashed their cells, streaking the walls with their own excreta and refused to wash. The action culminated under Sands leadership with a hunger strike, which killed him and nine other men.
The first character we meet is Raymond (Graham), a prison guard, in his neat suburban home. On leaving for work he does his routine check under the car for bombs before he gets in. When he arrives at the Maze we become aware of the injuries to his hand that are troubling him. It is only later we discover the horrifying reasons for those injuries, which is from the forced and violent washing and cropping of one of the prisoners, which is the first time we see Bobby. The spotlight then turns onto young new prisoner Davey (Brian Milligan), who is introduced to the realities of the blanket protest by veteran Gerry (Liam McMahon). Dialogue for much of the film is sparse, often to the point of total absence, which makes it strangely gripping. The very specific detail of the squalor and stink of the cells, self induced by the prisoners as part of their protest, the ritual brutality, the violence on both sides and scenes of visored riot police advancing on and beating down the defenceless prisoners are highly disturbing, made more so by the fact that one of the young policeman is reduced to tears by the actions of himself and his fellows, while the ultimate abrupt fate of Raymond is shocking. Although one is left with the feeling that the film comes down ultimately on the side of the prisoners and Bobby in particular, the fact that there is an effort at showing the other side strengthens the film enormously. Good use is also made of radio news archive particularly the voice of the British Prime Minister at the time Margaret Thatcher, who stubbornly refused to give in to the demands of the prisoners, whom she regarded as terrorists.
In contrast to the physical action and almost wordless nature of much of the film, the pivotal scene between Bobby and Father Dominic (Cunningham), the priest, who tries to dissuade Bobby from seeking martyrdom through the hunger strike, is a 20-minute duologue, filmed for most of its duration in one continuous static two shot with the actors’ faces in shadow. While the dialogue is fascinating and important, the theatricality of the shooting choice mitigates against our ease of following the argument.
The last section in which is Bobby is slowly and graphically dying of starvation is gruelling and appropriately distressing. As the figures of how many died before the prisoners achieved their aim come up on the screen, you are left with a sense of the uselessness and waste of it all and how the stubbornness of men (and one woman, Thatcher) escalated the situation into tragedy. Their aim, the prisoners keep saying, is for Ireland to be united. Stability has now been achieved in Northern Ireland through negotiation and power sharing but Ireland is still not united. So what did those deaths achieve? It is a very impressive piece of direction, however on McQueen’s part, though I’m not sure how many people will want to put themselves through the experience of watching this very disturbing film.
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