Shame

“Shame” – raw, graphic, nerve-splitting with brooding music compositions exaggerating the atmosphere of isolation and emotional numbness. I must correct myself, emotional insensitivity reads only to a certain superficial level that is out-weighted by the deep outcry for attention and intimate human connection. Brandon (Michael Fassbender), a successful corporate professional living in an upscale condo in Manhattan is a sex-addict, devoid of any attachments accept for those enforced on him by his dramatic and attention-craving sister Sissy (Carey Mulligan). Sissy becomes an inverse of Brandon, who is severely controlled in both his mind and physical disposition. His sister is a singer and a free-spirit, an infinite playful adolescent. Just like Brandon, she gets involved in messy sexual relationships, however what makes her different is the fact that she is overtly craving attachment that Brandon seemingly avoids.

The audience sits back in their seats for the duration of the movie, trying to tie together any possible clues of what had made those young and attractive people so similarly desperate and emotionally unbalanced. The blatant scenes of sexual intercourse and masturbation give the movie a soft-porn quality making one wonder how far will the cinema nudity go until it turns its films into XXX products. In this case, even though some erotic scenes were unnecessary long for their purpose, their voyeuristic quality gave the audience a front row seat into the life of a sex-addict. Days full of life-threatening interactions highlighted with cynicism and cruelty, take an unexpected turn of painful revelation. Can one change the rules or forever be caged by the ones internally constructed? This question is lingering on my mind as I exit the theater and crave to see Steve McQueen’s other film, “Hunger”…stay tuned…