Hunger

Brilliant and Profound Filmmaking
I went to see Hunger at a festival, and was left speechless. It took me a couple of days to fully digest the film. Hunger, both in its original manifestation as a 1890's novel by Knut Hamsun, and in this modernized version, is a parable of the human ego as it makes the agonizing journey to confront reality, both on the gritty level of survival and on the more esoteric level, which Andrew Harvey, Sufi scholar, describes as the place where the soul is, "burnt alive...mocked, derided, lacerated, opened up by visionary ecstasy.." And so the reason I reacted with such passion to this movie is simply that it is true; a thrilling and visually beautiful rendering of a profound truth. Maria Geise gets credit, not only for recognizing the beauty of the message in Knut Hamsun's masterpiece, but for bringing it to the screen in such an alarming, visceral, and scrappy (not in the sense of "fragmented", but in the sense of "a fighting spirit"),way.

I thought long and hard before coming...

don't miss that gem
Great American movie in the Italian tradition. Intelligent and insightful. Great writing directing and acting. Want to see more movies by that director.



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