Shame (2012)

Sitting in the theatre watching Steve McQueen’s new film, the sexually charged ‘Shame’, I enjoyed it quite a bit. After the screening, I was walking with another film critic and he asked what I thought. Now, normally this would be a straightforward question, but in trying to explain what I thought, I actually wasn’t sure how to respond.

There are many things in Shame that are absolutely breathtaking. Michael Fassbender, for one, is simply outstanding. He gives a subtle, stripped-down and absolutely brutal performance as Brandon: a man who needs sex –not wants – needs to have it. He hardly says anything but you can’t take your eyes off him. One minute he’s quiet and controlled, seeming to have things completely in hand, next moment he has succumbed to a terrifying burst of rage.

Shame hints at a conventional movie narrative a fair bit more than McQueen’s previous film ‘Hunger’. But it’s first and foremost a visual and sonic symphony: a journey through New York where words are mostly redundant. I would say we get 12 or so minutes into the film before anyone actually says anything, concentrating on a tense and powerful scene showing Brandon (Fassbender) trying to pick up a married woman on the subway. When we do arrive at the first words of the film, it’s only Brandon asking a co-worker what happened to his porn-infested computer.

Both Brandon and Sissy (Carey Mulligan), his drunken, slutty and suicidal sister, are on self-destructive paths but we never learn about their pasts and seemingly don’t need to know.
Sissy’s arrival in Manhattan is the catalyst of Shame. Before his sister arrives, Brandon’s life is a carefully measured series of quick sexual encounters with strangers, prostitutes, and women on the subway. There are cracks in the veneer of his life, like his office computer, infected by a virus caught from the mass amount of porn he’s been downloading. His life has a very definite pattern and these periodic cracks are akin to a stopwatch counting down to his impending, escapable doom.

Sissy is the polar opposite of her brother. Brandon, some sort of business professional, wears low-key blues and greys, while Sissy, a struggling nightclub singer, dons a bright red hat and vintage leopard print coat. Everything about him is designed to blend; everything about her is designed to stand out. She falls desperately in love at the drop of a hat, is loud, moved by momentary passions and drives Brandon absolutely crazy with the chaos of her life.

Fassbender and Mulligan both give immense, irresistible performances as people drowning in a sea of sexuality and self-hatred. Shame isn’t an easy film to sit through, to describe or to figure out but it’s riveting and spectacular cinema.