Shame is Beautiful but Melancholic

Ensign Lestat's Film Log, 11/04/2012

I confess I approached 'Shame' with great trepidation. There had been a lot of talk about the film, and more so since it had been slapped with an NC-17 rating by the MPAA Ratings board. That really had me worried - I couldn't quite imagine what all would be depicted and how often.

So, one wonders, why did I bother to watch it at all. Two reasons, really - Michael Fassbender, and, it's always good to be informed (but it helps if being informed means watching Fassbender).

Fassbender only appeared on my radar last year (wow, it actually seems like much longer than that). I saw him in 'X-Men: First Class', and was very impressed by him and his co-star, James McAvoy (the film per se is the worst kind ever). Then my sister handed me a copy of '300', and well, jeez, how can you resist, mate? I have doggedly gone through several of his other appearances, and have never come away unimpressed. Hence, the moment talk of his breathtaking performance began filtering through, I knew that I would just have to find the courage to sit through 'Shame'.

'Shame' never made it to the theatres where I live - due to its unavoidably graphic nature. With the DVD finally in our hands, I left it up to my sister to be the king's taster. I was only able to actually sit through it once my sister emerged from the viewing unscathed and not scandalised (having said that, she had to sit through 'Anatomy of Hell' as part of her University course, so this film must've been a walk in the park for her).

I guess I'm giving all this boring background about myself before discussing the film because in truth I am a prude - a child at heart, who'd much rather have fun at the movies than be emotionally challenged by it. A film like 'Shame' is purely academic to me, not something that I can (or want to, for that matter) enjoy, but a piece of art that must be appreciated. And I will say, that it can, indeed, be readily appreciated.

I might as well point out that anything I write in this review will and probably is a spoiler, so best be warned.

The film follows Brandon (Fassbender), who we soon find out suffers from an almost debilitating sex addiction. It encompasses his whole life - interfering with his natural relationships, his work and his mental state. All this becomes evident through the entire film.

Brandon's life follows some form of routine (around and including his addiction), till one day, his sister, Sissy, (Carey Mulligan) turns up at his apartment, unannounced and wanting to stay. This occurrence immediately precipitates a change in Brandon - his life and activities are severely curtailed by his sister, who is obviously not privy to his mental state of mind. Slowly and steadily, Brandon begins to display characteristics of a person suffering from withdrawal symptoms, which affect his life even more than before.

Where to start when writing about this film? There's so much to say, but there's a lot that's already been said. What's left?

In a way, the film is a very simple tale, but it combats a subject that is rather shocking. Well, this is a Steve McQueen film; after seeing 'Hunger' I know he doesn't pull any punches with his films. He shows the audience this shocking (sometimes frightening) man, who could very well be walking among us, but what's going on in his head? That's what's so scary about Brandon. We're all living our little innocuous lives, and maybe he just happens to be in it! Conversely, Brandon's antics could very easily get him into a lot of trouble, and I don't mean with the cops, I mean he could be in danger as well.

In a way, I suppose we all have, at some point experienced some sort of 'addictive' behaviour or feeling. Somethings that were done on an impulse, can later be understood to have come from some compulsion (to say something completely stupid out loud, when you know what the reaction is going to be, but feeling like you have to say it anyway), obsessed about things (inability to get a name out of your head, though it has no bearing on anything you're doing or thinking), or simply been addicted to something (repeatedly listening to a song for way longer than you know you should, perhaps?). But none of these would have interfered with our daily lives. A serious addiction (drugs, alcohol, and sex as it were) that complicate ones life is categorised as abnormal behaviour. Now, stuff like drugs and alcohol can be weaned away from the users (of course, the people need to want to go off drugs), but something like sex? This film just shows how ridiculously entrapping it can be. Therapy is the only answer, but for someone like Brandon, it takes quite a change in his personal and professional circumstances to even realise there is something wrong with him (having said that, at no point in the film does Brandon acknowledge there's a problem, but we know he's realised it in one scene which I shall discuss).

Michael Fassbender's Brandon is a beautiful looking and, when he wants to be, a charming man. He's reticent and polite, thereby making himself more attractive than the only other male character in the film, his boss, David (James Badge Dale). In a scene when David, Brandon and their colleagues are celebrating, the married David tries to pick up a girl at the bar. Suffice to say he is in-your-face and off-putting, whereas Brandon stands in a corner, in the girl's eyeline, quiet, polite and showing little interest in the proceedings. You can guess who the girl chooses.

The choice of Fassbender in the role is a good one. His acting is subtle, but real. His looks are unconventional, but at the same time breathtaking. He has a gorgeous frame and can carry off pretty much every kind of suit (yup, the birthday suit as well).

I have yet another confession to make - I did, in the beginning, find Fassbender very distracting. After all the hype about his full-frontal nudity, I have to say that he only appeared completely nude twice - that too in the beginning of the film. Talk about distracting! I also found myself getting really annoyed if other people were in the frame with him, but that actually happened just once. For the most part I was very immersed in the film.

What I like about Fassbender is that he emotes just enough. I'm going to sound like a broken record now, but with Ryan Gosling the man appears not to be emoting at all (when he does emote he's off the mark). With Fassbender, especially in this role, you're watching Brandon, not the actor, Michael Fassbender. What I especially enjoyed about his performance (and yes, I'm going to say enjoyed) was that his movements were so natural, as was his dialogue delivery. When I was watching one of the earlier subway scenes, in my head I kept asking myself, 'Who does this man look like? Who?', before I realised the man reminded me of the 'guy who played Magneto'. Sheesh! I'd forgotten I was watching Fassbender; it felt like I was the passenger opposite Brandon. Now that's acting!

What killed me was this scene nearing the end of the film. It is actually one of my least favourite parts of the film, but it's a winner because of Fassbender again. During a threesome with two women, Brandon spends the entire time looking like he's a man on a mission (I kid you not). He has this dogged expression of 'these are things I got to do now/ these are the ways I gotta be feeling now'. But eventually, near the end of the scene, he looks to be in a decided amount of pain (no, it's not just him climaxing), and his face is wrought with a mixture of guilt, pain, immense despair, but most importantly, a look of unsatisfied hunger. It's a fantastic moment because, and I don't know how the director achieved this, but Brandon's face actually looks skeletal and drawn, like a man starving. The image leaves you with your stomach tied in knots. It's frightening and after the film had ended I realised just what it all meant. The great realisation! Wow!

The above scene is a precursor to a climactic (can you think of a better word?) end to a very strange night. In one night, it is driven home to us and I presume, to Brandon as well, just what a problem this addiction has become. The night begins with him hitting on a girl in a bar (in his characteristically charming, evocative way), before getting beaten up by the girl's boyfriend (and he was asking for it, to be truthful). This incident would have sent any normal person scurrying home. Not Brandon. He jumps the queue to a club, only to be turned away at the door. So what's next for Brandon? Not the threesome I just mentioned. He follows a shady looking man into an underground club which eventually reveals itself to be a gay bar. Suffice it to say Brandon, who looks very different from everyone else in the club for some reason, gets well serviced by the shady gent. Didn't see that one coming, did you?

The film has an all-encompassing melancholic air about it. One could assume that engaging in the amount of sex that Brandon does, he'd be happy and joyful, but again, that's the whole point of this film - to be a sex addict is not normal; Brandon is a slave to these compulsions, and hence is devoid of joy. His boss is enjoying celebrating the deal that Brandon has just closed, but Brandon is just pretending. Brandon always dresses in mellow, dull colours (greys, dull greens). The man hardly cracks a smile. He attempts to pursue a relationship with a woman who he is completely incompatible with. It doesn't end all that well. His sister's endless perkiness just makes him angry. Just how tragic his life is, is evident when tears role down his cheeks as he's listening to his sister sing - all that pent up sadness gets a moment to escape, but only that. Much later in the film, he again sheds a tear, this time when he's realised just what he's become.

The film is beautiful, but so disturbingly sad, that it's taken me an entire day to realise just what I've seen. McQueen has a fondness for long takes. There's a startling number of them in this film. The camera's stillness gives the audience the sense of being a part of the scene (we could be sitting at the table near Brandon and his date, or behind the bar when he and his boss are chatting with some girls). It's just wonderfully artful. At no point do these long takes feel voyeuristic, and I can't begin to explain how he managed that. The scene with Brandon and his date, Marianne (Nicole Beharie) is really natural. The two could actually have been on a first date, and we, sitting at the nearby table wanted to film it. The following scene, of the two of them walking to the subway, is the same. Shot in natural light, which meant the actors were occasionally in darkness, felt much like we, the audience, may have just been walking backwards listening to them talk. Wonderful work.

One of my biggest worries when contemplating watching this film was (and sue me for sounding like a prude, but there's logic in my words) that the trouble with a story about a sex-obsessed male is that all you see is a lot of women (dressed or otherwise), but the (female) audience gets to see only one man (most times not even unclothed). Director Steve McQueen, thankfully, does not make this film about gratuitous sex and nudity, but we still have the problem of only seeing Fassbender nude while a lot of other women periodically take their kit off. There's no running away from it, I guess, but I wish there was. I say this because the threesome scene just felt really really long, and just didn't focus on Fassbender's... uh... assets. I suppose, the only way I can rationalise it is that considering Brandon's with these women, he should look pretty pleased with himself, but, as I've mentioned, he looks anything but. Having said that, it was still way too long.

I can see why the film got an NC-17 rating, but I feel that most of the R-rated films out there are a lot worse than this - this film doesn't actually sexualise the female characters, which is odd, considering, whereas a lot of other films do. Also, it's nice, for once, to have some male nudity onscreen, considering the amount of crap shown on television that is seriously downright repulsive and sans any male nudity but lots of the female kind. As I said, this one doesn't turn the ratio on its head, but it does (for the most part) handle nudity in a very aesthetic way (I can finally see what people mean by artistic nudity).

Enough gushing on Fassbender and McQueen. I really hope the two of them continue their good work. They really are brilliant.

I felt the supporting cast ably supported Fassbender, except for Mulligan. I haven't seen much of Mulligan but I was unimpressed with her work in this film. She has surprisingly limited screentime (it makes me wonder, having seen it, why she took this role; similarly, it makes little sense why she took the role in 'Drive' as well, that was also a small role), and her dialogue delivery, from time to time, felt a bit staccato.

I loved the editing in this film. A lot of incidents were interwoven with Brandon's train journeys. Let me refer back to my favourite sequence (even though it contains my least favourite scene, conundrums these days). An argument with Sissy sees Brandon leave his apartment. Next we see him on the train. Except... there appears to be a cut on his cheek. Did we miss something? We remain on the train for a while, before being transported to the bar, where Brandon is doing a convincing job of seducing a girl at the bar. We go backwards and forwards from the bar to the train several times, before we finally get to see how Brandon received his injuries. It's a spectacular piece of direction. It builds suspense in an otherwise non-suspenseful storyline.

The point of the suspense is to build up the sense of doom that has been impending throughout the film. Another moment of brilliance (yes, its from the same sequence), is when Brandon is in the gay bar. We follow Brandon as he walks through the bar (Brandon looks conspicuously out of place because he's fully clothed and in a coat, is clean-shaven with lots of hair on his head, I don't know if the director did this on purpose, but it's effective), there are people dancing to music that gets slowly drowned out by the film's score. By the time Brandon is kissing the shady character and then pushing him down, there's a hysterical crescendo in the background that just heightens the anxiety that has been building up since Brandon got beaten up. It's stressful, to say the least. Not in the least bit exciting. Can't say much of this film is exciting actually, that's the point.

One thing that nagged me throughout, while I watched the film was, 'How will they end it?' Endings are a specific problem for me. I never know how or when to end a story. It's a terrible problem, and probably is proof that I'm not writing the correct story (or else it would have a natural ending, without me having to manufacture one). This film brings the story to a close in a surprising, but strangely natural way. One can't help but think that, of course, this was bound to happen. The end incident precipitates an emotional outburst from Brandon (it's a long time coming) before giving us a tease of a last scene. Have things changed? Or do things change, just to stay the same? It makes you think.

It's shocking that this film received so little recognition for its efforts. It was a much better film than most of the entries at this year's Oscars, and Michael Fassbender not receiving a nomination at all is just shocking. I just can't get my head around the choices for this year's acting awards. One can only hope that Fassie pulls off another startling performance that will, hopefully, get recognised and awarded.

Comments

Alex said…
Hey Lovely article Les! Long time no see!
Would you like to write on a blog about england? i'm making a website.
oh i hope you remember me btw lol
Ensign Lestat said…
Hi, glad you like the blog.
If I remember correctly, you were on Orkut, am I right?
Sure I'd like to write about England, cricket, I hope! But may not be very consistent.
All the best with the website.