Shame (2011)
Dec. 5th, 2011 10:05![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
starladyShame. Dir. Steve McQueen, 2011.
This is a brilliant, discomforting, intense movie, one of the harder to sit through that I can recall watching. It's an excellent film, but like Roger Ebert, I don't know that I would want to view it again.
The movie is deeply unsexy, deliberately so obviously, and I was surprised to realize, about one-third of the way in, that I had come to sympathize so desperately with Brendan despite the fact that he is all but dead to human connection. All but dead, but not quite dead; his sister Sissey and his coworker Marianne are both able to provoke (abortive) emotionality in him, and I think it's a tribute to McQueen and to Fassbender that they're able to imbue this character who is so far outside the sociality that makes us human with a very tortured, very real humanity. I don't completely agree with Ebert when he says that Brendan is neither heterosexual nor homosexual, but I do think it points to something about his character, that he has no interest in people qua people, or even in sex the way or for the reasons most other people do.
The people who say that Brendan going to a gay club and getting a blow job from a man are unable to interpret narrative, let alone Fassbender's facial expressions; that's part of the arc of his emotional crisis/implosion, but it's nowhere near the bottom of that arc, and his breakdown after his sister's suicide attempt is merely the punctuation to it. (I shouldn't be surprised that, like everything else, the suicide is filmed unflinchingly and realistically.) I don't know about the ending, or rather, what to think of it; I'm not sure what the movie thinks, either. It is--ambiguous, but not in a dismal way.
Technically, I can't say enough about how well done this movie is. There's so little dialogue, and it doesn't need dialogue or exposition or backstory to tell its story (though I was amused to note that, in a movie with very little dialogue, they used a line to lampshade Fassbender's inability to shed his Irish accent). The music is also really well-integrated, and just the shots, the cinematography, are brilliant too (the long shot of Brendan jogging), along with the attention to detail (the broken walk sign at Madison Square Garden!). The subway sequences are brilliant too, as is the color work and production design in the movie. I've never seen light blue look so apocalyptic.
This is a brilliant, discomforting, intense movie, one of the harder to sit through that I can recall watching. It's an excellent film, but like Roger Ebert, I don't know that I would want to view it again.
The movie is deeply unsexy, deliberately so obviously, and I was surprised to realize, about one-third of the way in, that I had come to sympathize so desperately with Brendan despite the fact that he is all but dead to human connection. All but dead, but not quite dead; his sister Sissey and his coworker Marianne are both able to provoke (abortive) emotionality in him, and I think it's a tribute to McQueen and to Fassbender that they're able to imbue this character who is so far outside the sociality that makes us human with a very tortured, very real humanity. I don't completely agree with Ebert when he says that Brendan is neither heterosexual nor homosexual, but I do think it points to something about his character, that he has no interest in people qua people, or even in sex the way or for the reasons most other people do.
The people who say that Brendan going to a gay club and getting a blow job from a man are unable to interpret narrative, let alone Fassbender's facial expressions; that's part of the arc of his emotional crisis/implosion, but it's nowhere near the bottom of that arc, and his breakdown after his sister's suicide attempt is merely the punctuation to it. (I shouldn't be surprised that, like everything else, the suicide is filmed unflinchingly and realistically.) I don't know about the ending, or rather, what to think of it; I'm not sure what the movie thinks, either. It is--ambiguous, but not in a dismal way.
Technically, I can't say enough about how well done this movie is. There's so little dialogue, and it doesn't need dialogue or exposition or backstory to tell its story (though I was amused to note that, in a movie with very little dialogue, they used a line to lampshade Fassbender's inability to shed his Irish accent). The music is also really well-integrated, and just the shots, the cinematography, are brilliant too (the long shot of Brendan jogging), along with the attention to detail (the broken walk sign at Madison Square Garden!). The subway sequences are brilliant too, as is the color work and production design in the movie. I've never seen light blue look so apocalyptic.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-12-05 19:37 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-12-05 22:41 (UTC)