The Hunger

The Hunger is a very odd film. I know I appreciate it more than I enjoy it, as it is a weirdly constructed pair of stories stapled onto each other with a haphazard connection between the two, but there is also a ton of style that is quite enchanting, the performances are good, and deep down, there's an interesting story here. Catherine Deneuve plays a vampire who has lived centuries and has had a parade of companions. Her latest is David Bowie. He, like all his predecessors, is suddenly and inexplicably advancing in age at a rapid rate. Like, decades in hours. Susan Sarandon is a doctor who works in both the fields of sleep and aging, and she is investigating the mysteries of the human body's life clock in order to cure progeria. In the first half of the movie, Sarandon is sort of a side character, as the focus is on Bowie's deteriorating age. He is also the vehicle that ends up linking Sarandon and Deneuve for the second half's twisted, gothic, and doomed romance. This movie is DRIPPING with style. If you've ever seen any of Tony Scott's other movies -- Top Guna and Days Of Thunder are two notable ones, and he would also go on to direct music videos for George Michael and Kenny Loggins -- then you know his movies are overflowing with artifice and sheen, and The Hunger is no exception. Light and shadow are used throughout to fantastic effect; rooms are designed like stages, blowing gossamer curtains are everywhere, and it all combines into this weird 80's excess-meets-goth culture swirl. It is a visually arresting movie, in a good way. Even the editing plays into it, using quick cuts from one person or event to another that are meant to parallel each other in some special way. The acting is also a strong point. All three of the leads are great here; Deneuve has an icy, aloof facade that hides a loneliness, while Bowie is scared that his immortality is coming to an end and he can't stop it. Sarandon plays the younger woman who is sucked into this maelstrom well, seduced by the mystery of it all, but then horrified by the reality of it. The style, the look, the sound, the acting, all of this is what will carry you through the movie. Because the movie itself is good in bursts, and either half might've made for a better movie on its own, but they are bolted together in such a haphazard way, they feel disparate and alien to one another. The first half, dealing with Bowie's advanced aging, is an interesting idea -- someone who was once mortal and given immortality now has become mortal again and at an accelerated rate -- but it's given no time to explore it any deeper than surface level. He's dying, he doesn't want to, and Deneuve is sad, but kinda not really, because this has happened before. The vampirism angle is hardly even mentioned or seen; it's just the way to explain their undying state. When Bowie's character is gone, it then transitions (rather ungracefully) to Deneuve seducing Sarandon to be her new companion, and suddenly, the movie is an erotic thriller-slash-tale of someone being turned. Again, a fine concept on its own, if a little shopworn, but having it be two women and the movie never hesitates for a moment about going in an LGBTQ+ direction is bold and refreshing. These are two people who are attracted to one another, and that's all the movie has to say about that, and I like that. But again, there's so much more that could be explored here; WHY does she pick Sarandon, this person who just showed up on her doorstep? Why does Sarandon resist the idea of stopping the clock of life when her medical research is in that field? Why doesn't she have more questions about Bowie being gone once she is turned? There's so much more that could be explored here and, again, the movie is in a hurry to get from one place to another as artfully as possible. It results in a movie where two stories are told, barely intertwined at anything more than the most perfunctory level, and neither story is given enough time to breath. It's coincidental that this movie is called The Hunger, because that's how this movie left me: hungry. Unfulfilled. I got a taste of something I liked, and it was an amazing taste ... but it was only a taste. If you're fine with the movie's style-over-substance edict and two stories being told with the thinnest of depth, then you'll enjoy this. I may sound like I'm down on it, but I'm not. It did keep me hooked, and I did enjoy it. I just wish it was all it could've been. Hooptober 2022 movie #29/31