A neorealist ode in which pride and the performative are thoroughly deconstructed through the lens of a struggling artist, Henning Carlsen's Hunger is a harrowing story of detachment and alienation, detailing the corrosive nature which pride can have on the individual; a destructive force which manifests itself internally. Hunger's formalism is straight-forward, detailing in its main protagonist a poverty-stricken young writer who is trying to get his work published. He is a literal starving artist, one who is confronted with external obstacles, mainly day-to-day general injustices related to poverty - and yet it's not these external forces but the internal ones, notably pride which lead to his ruin. Featuring a phenomenal performance which is reason enough to see Hunger, the audience is presented with a character so prideful in his own abilities and self-deserved status that he is unwilling to accept altruism of any short, incapable of admitting his class status isn't among those which is aspires to be. A character who would rather starve than admit such a lower status, the viewer is forced to witness the slow physical and mental deterioration of this man, one in which pride remains the primary obstacle to nourishment. His life is performative, a lie, and while the external forces of the world far from caudle, they remain secondary, slight when compared to the oppressive nature of this artist's own pride. Featuring a straight-forward formalism very much in the traditions of neorealism, Hunger is familiar yet subversive in its construction, detailing environmental/societal injustices while simultaneously placing them secondary to internal, personal conflict from within, opting for an aesthetic and formalism which is largely sets its sights on realism, while offering up stylistic flourishes which detail the internal struggle of this character through impressionistic designs.
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AuthorLove of all things cinema brought me here. Archives
June 2023
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