SHAME

UK, 2011, 101 minutes, Colour.
Michael Fassbender, Carey Mulligan, James Badge Dale, Nicole Beharie, Lucy Walters.
Directed by Steve Mc Queen.

Over the years there have been some outstanding films that are psychosexual case studies. Obviously, not everyone will want to see or be exposed to such cases which can be very disturbing, not only because of the behaviour, but because they remind us that these are not merely stories but there are actual people dealing or not dealing with these obsessions, compulsions and addictions. When these films are made with serious intentions, they offer insight through storytelling and character depiction and exploration. This has been the case with such films of the past as Last Tango in Paris (now considered something of a classic) or, in more recent times, Sleeping Beauty.

The addiction in Shame is sexual addiction, sexual promiscuity and self-gratification. There are some explicit moments in Shame which ensure that the audience knows what the addiction is and how it affects the central character.

While this is a British production with British director and main actors, it is set in New York City – does this mean that this kind of story is more credible there? While we go into apartments, work offices, restaurants and clubs (and a brief excursion into a sleazy gay area), there is a thematic and visual motif that continues through the whole film and where we leave the protagonist. It is the New York subway, the underground symbolising a sub-conscious as well as conscious journey, where a passenger can get out for a momentary encounter (as he does here) or can stay on the train until he is prepared to arrive at a destination and come up into the light. The final locale of the film is the subway and the question whether the journey is never going to end, will end temporarily, or can truly end.

Michael Fassbender has emerged as a strong star as well as character actor in recent years (from Inglourious Bastards to X -Men First Class to Rochester in Jane Eyre and Carl Jung in A Dangerous Method). Here, he gives a performance, no holds barred, enabling the audience to see, understand and partly sympathise with the addict. Carey Mulligan (An Education, Never Let Me Go, The Great Gatsby) also has a self-revealing role as Fassbender’s depressive and self-destructive sister.

The screenplay (by director Steve Mc Queen who made the impressive Hunger, with Fassbender as Bobby Sands on hunger strike and Abi Morgan who wrote The Iron Lady) highlights the ordinary life of a mid-30s executive, especially at work, but also his private life, his use of women, his dependence on on-line pornography.

While the title does make some judgment on the protagonist’s behaviour, audiences may well be divided on whether he is redeemable or not, whether the film gives indications as to what his future will be. When he takes a fellow worker to dinner and she is able to get him to open up more personally than he is used to – revealing that his longest relationship had been four months – and his encounter with her leads to an impotence episode, he is not the same man we saw as the film opens. He also has to deal with his intrusive sister and, to his shock, a suicide attempt. Can he continue to be the same, self-absorbed man?

Shame is certainly a psychosexual case study, but it invites its audience to observe as well as to speculate on experiences which are destructive and experiences which could be therapeutic. The protagonist could go into the void and stay there – or are his experiences cries for help out of the depths?

1. The title, expectations, the judgment? The meaning at the end, Brandon’s decisions for his future? His understanding of his behaviour, his character and his past?

2. A British production, set in New York, a New York story? Themes more American than British?

3. The New York world, the audience immersed in it? Brandon’s world? His apartment and the various rooms, his affluence? His office at work? Restaurants, clubs? The sleazy streets of New York?

4. The theme of the subway, the underground, the underground of Brandon’s life and psyche, the journey, what destination? Choices? His sitting, observing, reflecting, the focus on the girls, the attempts at pickup, losing the girls? The final journey? Leaving or staying? His future?

5. Brandon as a character, the introduction to him, the sexual behaviour, the train, the pickups, sexual addiction, masturbation, naked in his apartment, the mirror, his image? His ignoring his sister’s phone calls? His back-story, growing up in Ireland, migration to New Jersey, his relationship with his sister, his sister invading his apartment, his refusing to let her come, the bonds of the past, breaking of the bonds, his allowing her to stay, her room, coming into his bedroom, his harsh treatment of her?

6. Brandon at work, Dave as his boss? The other members of the staff, their relationship to him, his looking at them, the women? Marianne?

7. David meeting Sissie? Going to the bar, her singing New York, New York, the plaintive style? Sissie and her desperation? The relationship with David? Her catching Brandon and his sexual behaviour? Her dependence on him, David and his being married and Brandon’s judgment on her? The phone calls, her being ousted? Her suicide attempt and its graphic presentation? Brandon visiting her in hospital?

8. Brandon and the office, going for a meal with Marianne, the discussions at the meal, the waiter continually coming back, his longest relationship being four months, opening up to Marianne? Going to the subway, not following her? His picking her up in the office, the taxi, the apartment, his impotence and the shock, her leaving, the effect on him? Her kindness? Her character, her background, divorce?

9. David and his behaviour, at the office, his wedding, his Skyping with his children, going out, the relationship with Sissie? Double standards?

10. Brandon and his being bashed, sitting in the subway, the flashbacks, his wandering the streets of New York, following the man on the street, the sordid club, homosexual behaviour, his own experience, getting out, his being bashed?

11. His life, self-gratification, his using women? The effect? The challenge for a man in his mid-30s to discover real feelings, the issues of commitment, his taking stock? The shock of the impotence? Of the revelations to Marianne and the personal talk? Of Sissie’s attempted suicide? The influence for his future?

12. A psychosexual drama? The director and his background in art and photography? The music, Bach, orchestral, the piano background’s being unobtrusive, New York, New York? The cumulative effect of this background on the portrait of a thirtysomething man at the beginning of the 21st century?