Words: Rob DeStefano
I took advantage of the festival’s headquarters at The Maidstone, claiming a lounge chair in the backyard. Anyone who has some stake in the festival passes through this property: it’s prime people watching territory. A complacent gentleman, stagnant on one of the outdoor couches, caught my friend’s attention. It was Ben Barenholtz, one of the distributors behind Eraserhead and a producer of the Coen brothers. He eagerly recommended one of his favorite films at HIFF.
I had to seek out Shame after listening to Barenholtz praise Michael Fassbender’s performance, believing that it will gain him an Oscar nomination. He also celebrated Steve McQueen as one of the best directors out there. I haven’t seen McQueen’s first work, Hunger, but his new feature reunites him with Fassbender to tell the story of Brandon, a New York City sex addict: though it’s more of a snapshot of Brandon’s existence at the time when his sister Sissy (Carrie Mulligan) unexpectedly crashes at his apartment. I trekked to the Sag Harbor movie theater – one of my favorites on Long Island – to find that the film deserved these accolades from the man who first recognized Lynch as an artist.
Fassbender and Mulligan are two of the best young active performers, and they certainly bare it all in this honest work. Beautiful cinematography with long, revealing takes paints these actors in an uncomfortably truthful vision. This is a film that will be hotly dissected: viewers are required to read between the lines and apply their own conclusions to the nature of Brandon’s shame and if it is a weight that he will detach from. McQueen avoids answering our questions but does so with intelligence and deliberation, rather than out of simplicity.
The following section contains spoilers.
There are several theories whispering around, but I found the most conviction behind one: the potentially former incestuous relationship between Brandon and Sissy.
We know that Brandon does not want to be part of his sister’s life from the beginning: she leaves several voice messages that he ignores. Sissy is impulsive and quirky. With the scars on her wrists and her volatile conversations with her estranged boyfriend, she exudes a dark layer that sizzles beneath her seemingly cute façade. After Brandon rejects her phone calls, she sneaks into his apartment while he is out. The ensuing confrontation scene – the first scene with the siblings together – takes place in Brandon’s bathroom where Sissy stands unapologetically naked as they hold a conversation. It’s interesting framing: Sissy nude and Brandon fully clothed opposite one another. His concealment suggests that he displays his guilt in a more private fashion, not baring the exterior scars of his extroverted sister, but now standing in his shower, his sister has finally caught up with him.
As Shame progresses, we learn that Brandon does not date or establish relationships: he releases his sexual addiction through constant masturbation and time spent with prostitutes, all of which is conducted with a methodical secrecy. When he (somewhat) lets down his walls for a female coworker, he becomes impotent with her: sex is merely mechanical and he cannot enjoy it with someone close to him. The only time Brandon expresses deep emotion is when it involves his sister: he cries when she sings at the night lounge, has a breakdown when she sleeps with his boss, and reacts to her failed suicide in the final act.
Before her suicide attempt, Sissy leaves Brandon a message, stating something along the lines of (it wasn’t completely audible in our theater), “We’re not bad people.” With additionally strange behavior throughout – Sissy climbs into bed with Brandon – I would think his “shame” comes from the incestuous relationship he had with Sissy during childhood.
This harbored guilt may have been what formed Brandon’s sexual deviance: he is an addict. By the end of Shame, he is so tortured and desperate that he searches for sex in all areas: brothels, male sex clubs, a stranger with her boyfriend present.
McQueen’s creation is an astonishing lamentation on addiction. He works with such artistry that he opens this specific story – that of a man addicted to sex – to a universal expression of inward suffering. McQueen, Fassbender, and Mulligan will all receive much attention for this powerful and unique contribution to film.
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