Shame is the new film from British artist Steve McQueen (no not that one). His first film 'Hunger' I must confess to having not seen. I heard it was very good off numerous sources and it is one that I will certainly be checking out after seeing Shame. Shame is the story of Brandon (played by Michael Fassbender) who is a sex addict. Brandon works a relatively successful job, has everyday friends, and has his rituals just like everyone else. The wild card in his life in this film is his sister Sissy (played by Carey Mulligan), who comes to visit him and stay with him, breaking his cycle and seeming to bring back memories of a past he would rather forget.
Sex addiction is something I have only seen represented on screen once before, in the movie Choke. Whilst choke played sex addiction down as something which didn't really affect your life very much, almost more as an amusement than anything else, Shame feels much more honest and affecting about the subject matter. The film acts almost as a snapshot into Brandon's life. We aren't shown, or told for that matter, about the events of his childhood, we aren't told of a trigger to his sexual addiction, we aren't told a lot. This isn't a film with clear narrative structure, it's not a film where you can lay out the plot on a piece of paper, showing how A leads to B leads to C. This is a structure that I personally found very involving and interesting, but also that the friend I went to see it with found mildly frustrating at times.
The film is set in New York, a city that almost seems to be perfectly designed for film makers, whether it's Woody Allen's beautiful shots of the city in, well everything he's ever made, or Scorsese exploiting the streets in many of his films. As someone who is not a native to New York, it is surprising that he manages to avoid many of the cliches of filming in New York, whilst retaining a strong link to the city at the same time. One of the more remarkable shots in the film is where we follow Brandon as he goes for a jog. In a single take we follow him along many blocks, simply running along the sidewalk at night. The city looks both beautiful and damaged (perhaps like Brandon himself). Another aspect of the film that I loved was the use of lighting. Much of the film takes place at night, and whilst the temptation may be to make sure that lighting is in place so that as the characters are walking the streets we can see their faces, their reactions and emotions, the lighting used here is very natural. At times the characters are barely visible for brief periods of time as they walk between street lights. Again, the film feels natural and real, whilst remaining slightly beyond reality.
In a Q&A after the film, McQueen and his writing partner Abi Morgan discussed the meetings they had with numerous sex addicts in America, about how they found that they could relate to many aspects of the routines of the sex addicts, that unlike Alcohol or Drug addiction, Sex addiction remained a stigma in society, yet also the addiction that most people can relate to on one level or another. Much of this is portrayed in the film. Brandon is a normal person, he's not a pervert, in fact one of his friends is shown to be much more of a creep than Brandon ever is. It also implies the shame that Brandon feels about the lengths he will go to to get what he needs in his daily life, without ever having the breakdown that would be all too tempting to put in if the film had a clearer narrative.
The cast are superb, each and every one of them. But as the two leads special mentions much go to Michael Fassbender and Carey Mulligan, who are two actors who have been in a lot of things lately, and have shown themselves to be two of the best actors around at the moment, arguably never more so than in this film.
I don't want to tell you too much about this film, as i don't want to ruin the effect of anything that you may want to discover for yourself. A few things. There is a lot of sex in this film. I wouldn't recommend it for viewing with your family. That being said the film never feels sexy, perhaps a conscious decision to show the distance that you feel between the sex you have to satisfy your addiction and the sex you have for fun. This is also an incredibly bleak film, the ending could be interpreted however you like, but the bulk of the film is a massive downer. There are however moments of hilarity, one scene involving a waiter had the whole audience laughing, giving you a refreshing break from the rest of the film.
In short I loved this film. Afterwards I was having a discussion about the distinctions between film for art and film for popular consumption, and whilst I know not everyone agrees with me I think that the line between the two is much less defined now than it ever has been in the past. This is evidently a film made by an artist, but that doesn't make it a film that only artists will understand, I thought that, like art, it left a lot open to your own thoughts and interpretations, an aspect I really liked, I also thought that visually it was stunning. I found it very hard to fault this film. It's probably not going to get the recognition it deserves come award season because of the subject matter, I could be wrong, I hope I am wrong, but this was one of the best films I've seen this season, and it's a film that I feel will linger with me for a long time to come.
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