directed by:
Stan Freeman written by: Stan Freeman genre: Science Fiction |
Isn’t it amazing how the right kind of dramatic music can make anything seem a little scary? I mean, there is technically a whole bunch of reasons to be a little bit fearful or anxious regarding the plotline for “THE HUNGER” given that it does seem like a very real & threatening possible future, but as the film begins, what you’d think would be nice, calming & peaceful shots of the landscape surrounding Madera, California, seem to be twisted in a frightening direction all thanks to the music that comes along with it.
A new company on the scene – ParTTran – promises to “end world hunger” by adding technology to traditional farming techniques, so that crops can be grown at an exponential and efficient rate. And what could go wrong with intentions like that, right? If there’s anything we can learn from the ominous tone of the music as “THE HUNGER” begins, it’s that we should probably be prepared for things to go sideways as this film continues on. Conceptually, “THE HUNGER” is definitely interesting – it’s basically the story of what it would be like for us to open the proverbial ‘Pandora’s box’ and what would happen if we tinkered with the planet’s food supply without being as careful as we should be. Does that sound possible to you? It sure as hell sounds possible to me! In fact, I’d probably go as far as to say that some folks out there would already feel like this stuff is going on - with the chemicals found in mass farming or geoengineering…like…there’s gotta be at least a couple reasons as to why we’re trying to grow meat in a lab already, right? I’m of the mind that we’re here for a good time and not for a long time, so I honestly don’t think a whole lot about this kind of stuff other than what’s on the plate right in front of me, but this film pretty much dares to ask us to consider what could happen if real chaos was injected into the means of which we sustain ourselves. Like…what if the soil and the water were to somehow disappear? To an extent, I can see there are some potential issues and obstacles standing between “THE HUNGER” and its viewing audience. The first being pretty glaring - you’ll need to listen more than you’ll actually need to watch. As you near the halfway mark of the film, you’ve spent a whole lot more time with details being communicated through dialogue, phone calls, and television broadcast news than you have actually seen anything of too much significance. From voiceover narratives to references to things happening off-screen that we can’t see, it takes some time before we eventually get to some visuals that make a meaningful impact on us. Eventually you’ll get to potent imagery where you’ll see wildlife struggling, dry farms with water running out & such, but it does take some time for us to get there, and even when we do, Writer/Director Stan Freeman still opts for dialog to do the vast majority of the heavy lifting, which almost makes “THE HUNGER” more suitable to be a teleplay than as a film. Overall, the film has a bit of a strange glossy look to it, to the point where it almost feels like you’re looking at something generated by AI. With its futuristic plot points and devices that can be purchased, it almost makes sense that it would have been. I don’t know enough about my camera lenses and technical stuff to know exactly what it is that makes “THE HUNGER” look like it does. Take a scene towards the start of the film, for example, where our main characters are being introduced to Jonathan Tang and William Clarke and their company ParTTran - everyone watching them onscreen looks like they’re probably standing in front of a green screen? I might not be able to quite explain it, but you’ll see for yourself when you’re watching - there’s a strange look to “THE HUNGER” that doesn’t quite feel as real as you’d hope that it would. Oddly enough, even the film itself references these visual oddities – like, you’ll hear FBI detectives talking about potential deep fakes with Clarke and Tang – and it rings pretty true when it looks like nothing we’re watching is based in the traditional way of shooting a movie, you feel me? Even television screens or posters & signs you’ll see lining the walls in the background look like they’ve been computer-generated, AI, or green-screened in. Is this just the way I’m seeing things? Even some of the actors onscreen have a weird, glossy look to them! Have I been pulled completely into the matrix? Am I at the point where I believe nothing I see is real? Where I felt like “THE HUNGER” completely missed an opportunity is that it really didn’t link any of these potential disaster scenarios to any kind of tangible human emotion. You’ve read the scenario that I’ve laid out for ya - something like this would affect us all, and it’d be scary as hell to experience - but rather than dive into the human element in that kind of regard, Freeman instead opts to make this more about a mystery behind the scenes with government agencies and whatnot, where it gets severely bogged down by a continuous stream of details that don’t tend to tie things into how we would be affected. Like, eventually we can see giant holes that develop far and wide across the map, and we can visually understand the dangers that would obviously come along with something like that - but at no point does Freeman really take enough time to show us how the common people, as in folks like you and me, would be affected by all of this.
It’s somewhat implied, at least a little, but I’m not convinced that leaving us to fill those blanks in as we watch is the most effective way to go about making a movie. Again, you’re in a visual medium - show us this kind of stuff rather than tell us. It just seems like Stan ended up with a genuinely great concept and didn’t quite find the route to capitalize on its full potential. I suppose what I’m saying is, we’ve got millions of government-based mystery movies, and this could have likely been a lot more impactful as a human-based story that revolves around technology instead. Perhaps that’s just the way I’m seeing it. As Freeman eventually makes the plotline shift so that the nefarious duo of Clarke and Tang appear to have a more strategically targeted agenda and introduces an otherworldly aspect to the story, I wondered if Stan might have missed the human element altogether. “It’s genius if you examine it.” At the core of it all, I actually agree with that statement. I don’t know that I can say Freeman got the most out of what “THE HUNGER” could have been, but at the roots of its concept & premise, his film has got the seeds of something special. Perhaps I’m just greedier than others would be in terms of what I want to see onscreen…I’m well aware that it’s extremely hard for any story to include everything we’d want to see in a film. Even when “THE HUNGER” does eventually find its way to show us some of the human element and how we might suffer or protest our own mass extinction, many of those images are definitely AI-based, and that human connection is once again lost. After all this mystery and conspiracy stuff goin’ on in the plotline - does “THE HUNGER” wrap up a little bit too neatly with a couple of well-timed shots to crucial targets? Yes. Unequivocally, yes, it does. If it were going to be that easy all along, you’d think that none of the suspense along the way would have even been necessary. So…yeah…it’s definitely on the anti-climactic side of a storyline, but I guess that’s how the cookie crumbles sometimes. I have to go with what’s in front of me, though, and not rate things on the potential they have…if that wasn’t the case, things would be much different in my assessment. I think I’ve gotta meet this in the middle…it’s still a quality idea, and it’s displayed coherently enough to watch, even if it looks a little strange along the way. I very much wish this had gone in several different directions than the ones it did… “THE HUNGER” gets two & a half outta five stars from me. |
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