Hunger

If you enjoy beautiful, Black and White films, HUNGER is one for you to enjoy. The film captures the look and feel of 1890 Oslo to perfection. According to the commentary, in 1966 this picturesque area of the city still existed, and the film was shot on location. Another compelling aspect of this film is the depiction of 'madness'. Per Oscarsson's portrayal really allows the viewer to inhabit his skewed paranoid world.

Dozens of films have demonstrated insanity caused by drugs, alcohol, and sexual obsession. However, in this movie the protagonist is pushed over the edge by sheer force of will.

His unyielding and rigid moral code will not allow him to take even the most reasonable course of action. The movie is bleak and somber, yet one is able to empathize with the character. In fact, the last scene in the film-the last expression on Pontus's face-leaves the viewer with a wide range of possible interpretations. Is the character embracing a new and hopeful turn of events, or is he under the spell of a new obsession?

This film describes like no other movie a feeling of desperation, hunger and life's meaninglessness. You get in a horrible mood watching it, but you can't take your eyes off the screen. It reminded me a lot of "Raskolnikov" ("Crime and Punishment") by Dostojevskij and a bit of Tom Kristensen's "Hærværk" ("Vandalism"). I did not think movies could be like this - irrational, desperate and oppressive. Per Oscarsson's role as the writer Pondus is moving and exceptionally good. He seems to be a good person, but his moral is tested to the limits, when he by mistake gets too much money back in a grocery. He describes with precise accuracy the dilemma between moral and one's own needs - hunger and love. Watch it, sense it!

This adaptation of Knut Hamsun's classic 1890 novel "Hunger" is an agony to watch, but it's a very well made film, and Per Oscarsson is magnificent in the proud, deluded, starving and increasingly insane lead role. There has perhaps never been a better depiction of of the self-destructive irrationality of a human being, in this case attempting to remain civilised and 'respectable' in the face of starvation and death. It's a little like watching a car crash in slow-motion, but as a mirror of ordinary madness, it's got a lot to show.

MESSAGES of misery and foreboding were flashed by in this great picture that was shown to me, and suddenly the air of geniality that was wafted into my surrounding was chilled.

This feature was "Hunger," a Norwegian-Danish-Swedish film that depicts the miseries of a penniless would-be writer in Christiana, Norway, toward the end of the last century.

It might be classed as fascinating but definitely a painful tours de forc, the first reason because of its smashing simulation of catastrophic reality, and the second because of the tormented and poignant performance Per Oscarsson gives in the principal role.

"Hunger," based on the novel by Knut Hamsun, is a pictorial study in a thin dramatic form of the Old-World romantic eccentricities,, hallucinations and creeping despairs of a young author dying of starvation, which he is too proud and foolish to reveal.

It is brilliantly played by Mr. Oscarsson, who stretches so tightly the nerves and the muscular movements of this fellow that he communicates a racking, haunting sense of a misguided, hopeless romantic methodically choking himself. For this performance, he was given the best acting award at the Cannes Film Festival.

Gunnel Lindblom is shadowy but touching in the pathetically sketchy role of a genteel young woman who is also starving and joins the writer in one pitiful grab at love. Henning Carlsen's direction is appropriately mordant and gaunt.

Excellent performances by Per Oscarsson, who portrays the starving writer who wanders the streets of Cristiania in search of love and a chance to get his work published. I really liked the way it was filmed, and how we get to look into Oscarssons mind through pictures and music.