Michael Fassbender’s performance and Steve McQueen’s backdrop mutually excel in a film that provokes a glut of probing questions on modern life, and the polarization between love and cold, soulless lust that lies therein.
‘Shame’s release to the cinema has brought with it a raft of publicity and attention purely because of its subject matter. In a nutshell, it revolves around sex. And I won’t lie to you, there is lots of it. (And Michael Fassbender’s, eh, wedding tackle) Generally,‘sex sells’. Just ask the editors of low end thrash lads mags ‘Nuts’ and ‘Zoo’. While we can joke about the kind of publicity that that kind of market seeks, the attention Shame has brought with it merits much more thought, and presents a very discomforting and brutally real exploration on emotional attachment, or should we say, detachment from the act.
Fassbender plays Brandon, a supremely slick but emotionally distant character, who seems to have only one focus in his life, women, and uncontrollable sexual urges towards them. He is successful and works in an impossibly gleaming yet soulless corporate office, surrounded by fellow alpha males and a reprehensible boss. His apartment is also utterly modern and coldly sleek, thereby lacking any warmth or character. In both these environments, Brandon’s tunnel vision revolves solely around inviting hookers around, voyeur cams via hardcore websites, and just plain old fetish browsing and relentless masturbation. It’s an entrenched bachelor existence to say the least, until his sister Sissy arrives, cramping his style and by staying on his couch, along with her unstable emotional outpouring.
The picture McQueen paints of Brandon and New York is one of modernity laid bare, all surface and no feeling. Manhattan is lonely. Brandon is lonelier. In his attempts of denying this, his need for primal sexual urges relentlessly brush it under the carpet. His approach to sex, and his endless quest for pushing sexual boundaries does indeed smack of addiction. I’d liken it to the chemical addiction of a cigarette. Brandon needs and wants one instantly, seeks it out, consumes intensely and without any feeling whatsoever, before discarding it away. Given that this addiction isn’t chemical, it warrants more exploration, is more intangible, and certainly makes Brandon’s way of life a more complex, inexplicable and distant way to be.
While his approach to sex and lifestyle is relentless, the arrival of drifter jazz singer Sissy (Carey Mulligan) begins to frustrate him, and sway him off course. On the surface, he wants nothing to do with her, and swats her away at every attempt. She is unstable, wild, and ultimately tragic, and amplifies the sorrow felt by both siblings in the desolation of New York. There are ambiguous hints as to where they have come from emotionally. Without his admission, she slowly ekes out his awareness of relationships and depth, illustrated by his tears at one of Sissy’s gigs. But Brandon’s way of dealing with this is to plunge further into his obsession, giving the viewer a blunt polar view between what is needed, and what is dangerously indulgent.
Fassbender is amazing. The audience feels his piercing sexual glare just as much as the unsuspecting subway users do, or the women who frequent the same bars as he does, before he immediately begins to pursue them ravenously and objectify them. He plays the icy cool, primal Patrick Bateman type with ease. However, the depth of the performance is etched out in the moments where we realize Brandon knows there is a deep rooted problem in his inability to love. He attempts to date a co worker in a polite and ‘formal’ manner, only to find himself utterly inexperienced, and more importantly, incapable of engaging in the emotional depth such a commitment requires. His struggle becomes obvious, wretched and pitiful.
McQueen illustrates the backdrop to all of this in a stunningly affective way. A true artist, he perfectly explores that line between tragedy and beauty, through Brandon’s exploration of his own problem. It’s all wonderfully epitomized when Brandon pushes all boundaries on a sex crazed splurge in one impossibly hedonistic night. An epic (and beautifully shot) but utterly discomforting threesome scene becomes the pivot of the film’s entire premise. It is a brutal and harrowing portrayal of a modern man so deeply indulged in his own problem, whilst desperately struggling to get a grip on its emotional understanding.
Shame is highly charged, visual and evocative. Its dialogue is sparse, but utterly crucial when it counts. Its an artistic tour de force, and highly thought provoking, as any piece of magnificent art should be, thereby showing Steve McQueen as an artist at the top of his game. Like any film worth its salt, it makes you mull over its subject matter long after the credits roll. Indeed, it can be termed highly ‘squeamish’, and not something we as society are totally comfortable with yet, as it is an area exacerbated by the darker sides of our modernity. As it continues, emotional capability and depth get left behind, exposing raw vulnerability. The tragic figures of Brandon and Sissy are common now, and slowly grow in number in vast, lonely and tragic places like New York. This all occurs without much acknowledgement, and the polarization and definitions between such primal acts as love and sex becomes more gaping. Thanks to its superb protagonists and backdrop, this is highly relevant cinema for modern times, and as a film, has pushed all boundaries. Go and have a think about it.
The film that is. Not the ‘wedding tackle’.
View a trailer here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24cjqfVv1fs
