Thursday, April 19, 2012

The Hunger (1983)

The Hunger is a cult classic and very unique vampire film. Refreshingly, the vampire flair seen in most vampire flicks (blood-sucking, fangs, sparkles!) is omitted and replaced with overflowing stylistic and visual flair.

David Bowie is starred alongside of an irresistable Catherine Deneuve, and Susan Sarandon. You can see the glam rock influence of Bowie in the film's style mixed in with the beauty of classical art. Every scene concentrates on visual aesthetics: flowy sheer curtains (particularly during the film's famous lesbian love scene), music video-like photography, and Tony Scott trademark lighting techniques (shining through window blinds). The color pallette is suitably pale with a blue tint. The camera placement is cleverly voyeuristic. There are a lot of long shots that focus on intimate details; a factor in the film's "slow pace" which for some cannot be appreciated. And the make-up artists did a phenomenal job. A complete visual sensation.

The soundtrack is a fantastic mixture of genres from Bauhaus and Iggy Pop, to Schubert and Bach, to ambient, synthesized tracks made with bizarre electronic sounds.

The Hunger was Tony Scott's directorial debut but its art house nature was not received well by critics. There is so much goodness going on in this film, it is a shame that it did not receive more recognition.


No comments:

Post a Comment