HUNGER was the crown jewel of the 2007 FAIF festival, where it won Best Underground Feature. With the precise direction of Maria Giese, a PERFECT performance by Joseph Culp, and a splendid score by Emmy Award-winner Trevor Morris (from none other than the studio of Hans Zimmer), "Hunger" transcended everything it had going against it. It is a true guerrilla masterpiece that can stand tall alongside anything made by a studio or a major independent. It's difficult to find words to express HOW MUCH I LOVE this movie, but I'll try:
Maria Giese had the inspiration and vision to adapt the towering 1890 novel, "Hunger", by Norwegian Nobel Prize-winner Knut Hamsun, and to contemporize it for modern-day Los Angeles. She then teamed up with actor Joseph Culp to star and co-produce the film. Culp portrays Charlie Pontus, a screenwriter with a good heart and mind, armed with kindness and talent, who is struggling desperately to get a job as well as something to eat.
Even though it was shot in modern day Los Angeles, Ms. Giese somehow achieved putting the city in a time capsule. It felt like and looked like a period piece. So well done and so "guerrilla." "Hunger" is truly a defining example of guerrilla film-making at its best. Ms. Giese brought back memories of Jarmusch, Hal Hartley and Nick Gomez, but better.
PERFECT!
Joseph Culp's portrayal of the screenwriter, Charlie, was perfectly nuanced and convincing. The audience shares his hilarious and heartbreaking dilemma. We feel deeply for him as he spirals downward. As we witness with frustration how he keeps naively missing opportunities, we still love him for his kind heart and often comical sincerity. Charlie's slow descent into homelessness and madness as he succumbs to starvation was so believable and absorbing that you began to smell the food in the restaurants and vendors he shambles past. The character's inner voice was delivered with such subtlety and credibility, it resounds long after watching the film.
Trevor Morris composed an amazing original score, full of humor and pathos, and which beautifully compliments the character's inner-life. The tone of the score rises and falls as poor Charlie waits to hear about a screenplay under consideration by the heartless, exploitative studio "Chief" played by Joseph Culp's father, actor Robert Culp.
This 2007 movie (which IMDb has incorrectly dated 2001 based on an early work-in-progress screening) took years of hard work by all involved. It should be noted (and corrected by IMDb) that it is in fact a 2007 release. It is making the festival rounds now and is not to be missed! With the writers guild strike in full swing, "Hunger" is especially poignant. I recommend Hunger with great confidence for anyone who wants an enjoyable, meaningful, magical cinematic experience.
I LOVED IT!
