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Words by Oliver Lunn Not many films leave me feeling as if I’d been kicked in the gut, winded. But as the credits rolled to this particular film, Steve McQueen’s latest, I felt an odd sort of palpable sadness. With its wintery urban setting and its audacious depiction of sex addiction, Shame is a film that’s deeply melancholic, highly original and unforgettable. Michael Fassbender plays Brandon, a sex-addicted New Yorker estranged from his colleagues, family and wouldbe lovers. Finding a woman is not so much of a problem for the handsome Manhattanite; it’s his inability to be anything other than animalistic with a woman that’s at the heart of his alienation, especially when he wants to get closer to one of his co-workers. Adding to his frustrations is the burden of his promiscuous and fickle sister, Sissy (Carey Mulligan), with whom he has a seemingly complex back-story.
And because of his reticence about his insatiable need for sex, Brandon can’t help but push his equally unstable sister away, with profoundly sad consequences. Brandon is one of the most compelling characters of recent times, if not all time – in fact, no similar characters spring to my mind – and Fassy fully inhabits the role. We follow him closely through the entire film: alone at his desk, jogging through the city, masterbating in the shower, eating his dinner with a sidedish of porn from a laptop. But regardless of Brandon’s addiction, it is fairly easy to empathise with him on some level, as I’m sure most of us have felt estranged or isolated at one time or another. In perhaps the only erotic scene in the film, Brandon is about to have sex – as opposed to emotionless intercourse – with one of his female colleagues. It’s a reasonably long build-up as they strip each other off, but when the woman begins touching his face, signalling intimacy, something
goes wrong psychologically in Brandon. He’s near paralysis and presumably lost any sexual desire. We share his frustrations whist feeling sorry for him – not because he can’t get it up, but because of the possibility that he might never experience romantic love in the traditional sense, where there’s trust and exclusivity; where the lovers are each irreplaceable to one another. Steve McQueen could have quite easily placed Brandon against characters with a more, shall I say, ‘normal’ sexuality, as a way of empasising his difference. But to the filmmaker’s credit there are no blackand-white scenarios here. (Brandon’s married boss also sleeps around), and true to reality, all that remains are the ambiguities and complexities of contemporary metropolitan life; an urban life that, for Brandon, is ultimately an extremely lonely one. What adds greatly to the film’s many disconcerting scenes is the environment and the way in
“Brandon is one of the most compelling characters of recent times, if not all time”
which it’s shot. Settings include the camera follows Brandon, no sleek apartments, smart hotel cuts, through the crowded rooms, sleazy bars and mini- subways, or as he jogs alone into malist office spaces. The work Times Square – it’s as if we’re there place in particular brilliantly sets jogging alongside him, experioff Brandon’s emotions, with all encing the moment as he does. its mundanity and quotidian Indeed the moments that recall sounds: incessant bleeps, printer Hunger’s originality shout out that clatter, ringing phones, and that McQueen’s New York is not the sound when you send an email – New York of Allen, Scorsese, or sort of like an Lee. It’s truly his own. “a film that aeroplane taking off The Guardian’s Xan exemplifies the Brooks found the film in a second. This clinical world of glass, to have “glimmers of balance reflections and muted American Gigolo” between a and “echoes of colours is in keeping with the predominant compelling Midnight Cowboy”. tone of the film, which But I can think of few, characteris cold and solemn – if any, notable supported in no small driven story and comparisons. Shame part by the powerful is an utterly astoundremarkably -ing film, easily one and poignant, but never overwhelming, inventive form” of the most original Harry Escott score. features I’ve seen this year. It’s a Having seen Kenneth Lonergan’s film that exemplifies the balance brilliant Margaret a few nights between a compelling characbefore – also set in New York – it ter-driven story and remarkably was interesting to see a disparate inventive form. Although it’s not portrait of the city, no doubt an easy watch – exhausting, helped by the fact that McQueen, even – it’s certainly one that British-born, comes to the city lingers in the depths of the mind... with fresh, foreign eyes. Following Praise be to Fassy. on from his decidedly naturalistic Hunger, Shame also contains the Shame is in cinemas from the director’s now trademark use of 13th January 2012 the long take. In some scenes