A shabby young writer wanders aimlessly around, hungry and penniless. He is evicted from his rented room because he cannot pay the rent. He gives his last money to a tramp in an attempt to preserve his self-respect.
He puts on an act for himself and his surroundings. Raises his hat and is courteous as if he were a fine gentleman without a care in the world. But no one, not even he himself, is taken in. In the end he has no more things to pawn. The pawnbroker will not accept his glasses, the buttons of his jacket or the worn blanket he is carrying under his arm.
He tries - unsuccessfully - to get work at a grocer's. He writes an article for a newspaper. It is accepted, but he does not get the money until the following day and then he immediately gives it away. This makes him feel good. He falls in love with a beautiful young woman he sees in the street (see clip) and he has an unforgettable rendezvous with her in her flat.
Scaring intensity
Henning Carlsen's hypnotising film about the starving artist is based on a novel by world-famous Norwegian writer Knut Hamsun. The lead part is played by Swedish actor Per Oscarsson. He won an award at the Cannes Film Festival 1966 for his almost scaringly intense performance.
We experience Kristiania through the writer. Either he is in the picture or we see the surroundings through his eyes. We take part in his despair and understand his need to keep up appearances. He declines any offer of help - in this way he maintains his dignity. But for how long can he go on living like that?
Art and suffering
In the writer's opinion, an artist is above material things. Perhaps it is hunger and suffering that enables him to write and be an artist. Hunger in itself has become an artistic project.
The American writer Paul Auster calls Hunger the best filming of a work of literature he has ever seen.
Christian Monggaard is a film reviewer and critic for the daily newspaper Information.
Per Oscarsson in Hunger. Photo: Jesper Høm.