This was a very hard to watch movie about the 1981 Irish hunger strike, and it shows the dramatic events in the Maze prison.
The first half of the movie shows us the daily life of an Irish prison. They refuse to wear the prison uniform because they want to be recognized as political prisoners, and they have a no wash protest going on. Due to this protest, their cells are smeared with their own feces, and their hair and beard are long and dirty.
The film doesn’t spare us from the dirty details, for example there’s a scene where we see a guard washing the floor from the prisoners’ pee. There’s also a very violent scene where the guards force the prisoners one by one to wash.
Up until now there’s very little dialogue, it’s all in the visuals. Then Bobby Sands comes in and he has a very long 1 take dialogue scene with his priest. That’s when Sands explains his beliefs and motivation behind the imminent hunger strike. This is a great scene, about 20 minutes of uninterrupted dialogue, with the camera capturing their profile, still.
After this scene, we follow Sands throughout the strike. His condition gets worse and worse, but his determination is insurmountable. Some of the doctors feel for him, but they can’t do anything for him. I don’t know how the actor did it, but by the end of this film he really looked malnourished and near death. I don’t think it’s make up, he really looked like a stick, frail and defenseless. Opposite to how he was before the strike, a healthy muscular young man.
As hard as it was to watch, this was a very affecting film that I will never forget.
Rating: 4 Stars