SHAME (Rated R): short film review

If you're a cinephile you would be aware of the 'say fuck me' line in David Lynch's 1990 film Wild at Heart and you would know that in this highly charged sexual encounter between Bobby Peru (Willem Defoe) and Lula Fortune (Laura Dern) Bobby attempts to seduce Lula, whilst simultaneously wanting her to beg for sex. It's a moment in which he needs to see that her vulnerability and desire is greater than his.

There's a similar scene in Shame (Steve McQueen, 2011) in which Brandon (Michael Fassbinder) attempts to seduce Carly, a young woman in a bar. When she looks across at her boyfriend, Brandon says: What? Are you with someone? Does he go down on you? I do..That’s what I like to do..' He places his hand under her skirt and says: 'I like the way it feels. I like the way it’s just me and it... I wanna taste you. I'd like to slip my tongue inside you.' When her boyfriend approaches Brandon he tells the boyfriend: 'I was just telling your pretty girlfriend here, that I’d like to fuck her in that tight pussy of hers... I mean bone her real hard til she’s clawing up my back... After I fuck her hard up the ass, I put my balls in her mouth while I come on her face'. He then shoves his fingers, covered with the odor of Carly's vagina into the boyfriends face. Suffice to say that the boyfriend attacks him after wards outside the bar.

His blase description of his brief conversation with Carly and his obvious lack of concern for her feelings or that of her boyfriend, returns us to earlier scene in which Brandon's confiscated office computer, now returned, was according to his coworker David - 'filthy...I mean, it is, it is, dirty. I’m talking like hoes, sluts, anal, double anal, penetration, inter racial facial, man. Cream pie. I don’t even know what that is'. He later tells Brandon that 'It takes a really really sick fuck to spend all day on that shit'. Michael may or may not be considered a 'sick fuck' for many people spend much of their leisure time trawling pornography sites and interacting sexually with others on line. I'm not sure if part of the message of the film was that face to face personal relationship may be destroyed by this kind of detached activity in which pleasuring yourself with or without the presence of another can be a lonely and soul destroying pursuit, however Michael does has an obsessive sexual addiction fed in part by magazines, computers and social network sites. He has an inability to become close to anyone. His sister Sissy (Carey Mulligan) appears to have the same affliction and they share some deep and dark past that is hinted at, but never really revealed. Indeed the scene in which Sissy sings 'New York, New York' is hauntingly beautiful and the connection between her and her brother's pain is revealed in one tear that rolls down Brandon's cheek as she sings. I was reminded of Rebekah del Rio's powerful Capella version of 'Llorando' - Roy Orbison's "Crying" in Spanish at the Cafe Silencio in Mulholland Drive (David Lynch, 2001) and Isabella Rossellini's rendition of 'Blue Velvet' in the film of the same name (David Lynch,1986). In all these scenes the songs are related to sexual desire. This is a beautiful if not painful film with superb acting from all cast members. I saw it this morning at the Kino Cinema in Melbourne. A must see, not because of the vivid sex scenes, but because it acutely displays the anxieties experienced by those who are addicted to sex and feel the shame.