BARRIERS
by
Howard Schumann
Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo - these words have become synonymous
with torture and abuse of prisoners, yet in his explosive film Hunger,
British first-time director Steve McQueen, a Turner Prize-winning black
visual artist, reminds us that the U.S. does not have a monopoly on
the use of coercive violence against prisoners of war. Here the setting
is Belfast’s Maze prison and the prisoners are not Arabs but members
of the Provisional Irish Republican Army, a group of volunteers whose
stated goal is to end "British rule in Ireland," and "to
establish an Irish Socialist Republic, based on the Proclamation of
1916.” Co-written by McQueen and Enda Walsh, Hunger provides
little historical background nor clear elucidation of the issues involved,
only the stark reality of the prison experience, dramatizing, in excruciating
detail, the hunger strike led by IRA member Bobby Sands in 1981 to restore
his fellow inmates’ special status as political prisoners.
The film opens with a woman banging a trash-can lid against the street.
Raymond Lohan (Stuart Graham), a British guard at Maze prison, is then
seen going through his morning routine at home, washing his injured
hands, eating his breakfast. Living in fear, he surveys the silence
outside of his home, checks underneath his car for a bomb, and turns
the key in his car with trepidation.
The scene then
shifts to the prison where Davey Gillen (Brian Milligan), a new arrival
in “H” block, is beaten by the guards after he refuses to
wear the clothing issued by the prison, in protest against the inhumane
nature of the penal system. He is thrown into a cell with Gerry Campbell
(Liam McMahon) in which the walls are covered with feces and puddles
of urine are seen in the hallways. The prisoners who also have refused
to wash in protest are wrapped only in dirty blankets. Prisoners are
forcibly dragged to be washed in a bathtub, and then are beaten and
bloodied again. Bobby Sands (Michael Fassbender) is not seen until halfway
into the film when he is dragged out of his cell to be washed by prison
officers who violently cut his hair.
The high point
of the film is a twenty-two minute discussion between Sands and a moderate
Catholic priest Dominic Moran (Liam Cunningham). Captured in a single
shot, their talk concerns the ethics and the practicality of the hunger
strike which Sands has just announced, with the priest doing his best
to dissuade Sands from what would be tantamount to suicide. His story
about being with Belfast chums on a cross-country running trip and agonizing
over what to do with a foal dying in a river is a moving testament to
the depth of his commitment to a cause that he is ready to die for.
Sands tells Father Moran who does not believe a hunger strike will make
the British capitulate, "I will not stand by and do nothing."
The hunger strike,
which attracted widespread support throughout Ireland, eventually led
to the death of ten prisoners, including Sands, but ushered in a period
of gradual compromise and reconciliation that resulted in the Good Friday
Agreement of 1998 and the ultimate end of the armed campaign. Hunger
is not comfortable to sit through, especially as we witness Sands’
slow physical deterioration, yet it stands as a solemn reminder of the
inhumanity that occurs when democratic rights are flouted, from the
Holocaust to Abu Ghraib. It is a brutal, stomach-turning film that portrays
the poisonous hatred that human beings are capable of, yet, through
the beauty of its art, opens the door wide enough to allow us to also
glimpse the strength of the human spirit.
*
Going
for a swim in a swimming pool is an everyday occurrence for most young
people. For eighteen-year old Venkatesh (Venkatesh Chavan), however,
it represents a life of privilege to which he has no hopes of attaining.
Poor and illiterate, Venkatesh is a tall, wiry young man who works as
a room boy making beds, cleaning rooms, and scrubbing toilets in a hotel
in Panjim in the Indian State of Goa, a former Portuguese colony. His
spare time is taken up, not with cricket matches or sailing, but with
selling plastic bags on the streets with his eleven-year-old friend
Jhangir (Jhangir Badshah) who has no parents and also cannot read or
write. Based on co-screenwriter Randy Russell's short story set in Iowa
City, Iowa, and transported to India by director Chris Smith, The
Pool is thoroughly without condescension or efforting
at multicultural “sensitivity”.
With a style reminiscent
of the realism of the Italian masters and the quiet humanism of Satyajit
Ray, Smith, a filmmaker from Milwaukee, best known for his 1999 documentary
American Movie, uses mainly non-professional actors to tell
a simple story about real people engaged in life. Many of the stories
are taken directly from the boys’ life, and Smith wisely avoids
imposing his preconceived notions of how life is there for them. That
sense of balance and proportion is what gives The Pool a special
resonance. Spoken in Hindi (a language Smith does not speak) with English
subtitles, The Pool is rich in detail and feels completely
natural, as if it were unfolding right before our eyes, with the camera
merely following the characters around to see what will happen next.
On one of his
walks into the more affluent suburbs, Venkatesh climbs a hillside, sees
a swimming pool in the backyard of a neighbor’s villa, and becomes
obsessed with the idea of swimming in it. What especially interests
him is the fact that no one ever seems to swim in it, which he longs
to do. Climbing onto a mango tree near the property to get a better
view, Venkatesh thinks of different ways of getting into the pool and
shrugs off Jahangir who tells him, “The closest you’re going
to get to that pool is cleaning it.” Venkatesh, however, makes
friends with the residents of the villa – chiefly an almost silent
upper class man from Mumbai (Nana Patekar) who offers him work. Soon
he becomes interested in the man’s snooty daughter Ayesha (Ayesha
Mohan), whose urban sophistication would make her at home in New York
or Chicago.
While the social
and economic divide is too large to give Venkatesh much of a chance
with Ayesha, they nevertheless develop a charming friendship, going
on boat rides with Jahangir and visiting an abandoned fort. When the
three are just relaxing and being together, they are just kids enjoying
themselves and there is no consciousness of class. The gap between them
surfaces, however, when Ayesha refuses his offering of a cup of chai
or some papadums at a vendor’s stand. When the two boys bicker
at the fort, Ayesha sullenly calls them children and stomps off. Eventually,
Venkatesh is hired as a gardener by the owner, who takes a paternal
interest in him, leading to a surprising life-altering choice and a
new understanding of the world.
©2009 Howard Schumann
CineScene
