Howard Schumann At first glance, Pontus (Per Oscarsson) looks like a well-groomed businessman but on second look, there is something not right. His smile reveals a core of rotting teeth and his manner seems odd. He follows two young women on their walk through the city of Christiana (later Oslo) in Norway in 1890, yet keeps telling one of the women that she has dropped her book. He stops a policeman to inquire about the time, but insists that the officer is in error. Based on Norwegian author Knut Hamsun's psychological novel of the same name, Henning Carlsen's Hunger probes the inner working of the mind of a talented young writer living in poverty and on the verge of insanity.Shot in black and white, the film captures the bleakness of a world looking for a soul. Oscarsson totally captures the struggling author in a magnificent performance for which he won the award for Best Actor at the Cannes Film Festival. Not only is he in every scene in the film, but the film can scarcely even be conceived of without his presence. Pontus wanders the streets of Christiana moving from a semblance of rationality to hallucinatory madness yet still retaining his dignity and cool intelligence. Though he is reduced to trying to sell his glasses, the buttons from his jacket, and his only overcoat in order to stay alive, he refuses assistance from friends, and when he does come into a bit of money, he promptly gives it away. Though his poverty and suffering appears to be self-inflicted (there are hints he could go home to a cottage in the country), psychologically he is not in full control.Pontus has submitted an article for publication and his hopes are bound with the editor's decision. Told to come back the next day at 3:00 PM., the hours go slowly as he tries to negotiate renting a room with the promise to pay the next day. The editor at last recognizes his talent but tells him to tone his article down and bring it back the next day, at which time there will be some money waiting for him. Asked by the editor whether he needs money, his pride does not allow to admit the obvious and he refuses help, seemingly attached to his deprivation as if he has staked out a position that he must defend at all costs.He is moved almost to tears when a lovely blonde he names Ylajali (Gunnel Lindblom) takes an interest in him but apparently his presence in her home does not fit her picture of the romantic starving artist and the relationship ends quickly. Staying alive by scraping meat from dog bones, Pontus grasp on reality slowly fades but he maintains his dignity while refusing to compromise with the world, yelling insults to God for the mess he is in rather than seeking to find a way out. Oscarsson's portrait is unforgettable and makes what could have been a very depressing film into a tribute to the worth and dignity of every human being, regardless of their circumstances. Hunger is a classic film worthy of Bergman and Bresson.

tedg Superficially, this is a collection of tableaux concerning a writer who is so caught up in the identity of a writer that he cannot write, and therefore is starving, both in terms of food, and in terms of the written product. Its actually pretty satisfying at this level. We get it. The character within gets no such nourishment but we as viewers do.So there's a sort of twist built into the thing, we see a tubelocked artist and depend on an efficient artist to receive the art that conveys this. That means the manner of the way it is constructed matters, and that's why you may want to see this. Because its a complex calculation that the filmmaker has to make. There's a balance here between art that escapes the artist and art that doesn't. I don't know the book, but presume it is rooted in internal dialog, noted here in a few spots with muted tones and the appearance of our artist as listener for his ramblings. But it is an afterthought in the film. The real center here is in the antiseptic stance we are placed in as viewers. We see but cannot touch. We always find ourselves just a bit beyond the perimeter of this man's artistic reach. Its us that cannot reach him, not he that has trouble reaching us.Oddly, this reversal works. It may be just me and my deep obsessions with narrative agency, but I think a deliberate decision was made here as sort of role reversal and symmetric reflection at the same time. Its characteristic of Scandanavian film problemsolving.Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.

Prokievitch Bazarov 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.

locdawg 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.