A visual essay on Steve McQueen's HUNGER

There's still one more screening of Hunger (2008) at 8:30pm tonight. If you miss it, don't fret: IFC has plans to release the film Stateside in the very near future.

Possibly the most arresting film about prisoners since A Man Escaped (1956), Hunger invokes so many different types of images that it's hard to define director Steve McQueen's achievement in words. There's barely any dialogue in the film -- one crucial several-minutes-long scene excepted -- and as such it seems appropriate to express feelings about it using images. Here goes:

1. 

Francis Bacon (1909 - 1992): Three Studies for a Crucifixion - 2 (1962)

2.

Imperial War Museum archives: Bergen-Belsen, Germany, 1945

3.

Bill Viola (1951 - ): Ocean Without a Shore (2007)

4.

A chamber in Her Majesty's Prison Maze, Northern Ireland

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5.

Still from Alan Clarke's Elephant (1989) -- Side A (companion film)

6.

Still from Hunger (2008) -- Side B

7.