Shameless Shame: Pushing The Boundaries of Intellectual Porn?

What's the idea behind the movie?

I kept asking myself this question throughout the movie "Shame" , directed by Steve McQueen, as I watched a scene after scene of the main character's full frontal and endless sexual activities, including very graphic masturbation scenes. I wanted to 'read into the lines' to see if there's a point to all of it for the director to actually make a movie that is both disturbing, dark, sad and solves nothing.

However, some of you might have no doubt, what the director wanted to show. A man's despair? Perhaps. A sexual deviance? Definitely. A today's modern family? I'd say so. A lonely New York City? This could be possible too.

The main character - Brandon (Michael Fassbender) is a lost person, who, most likely, experienced some kind of drama in his childhood that impacted him for life in the way as to make him a very lonely and disturbed person, who does not even know how to approach a normal (non-deviant) relationship with a woman. And even when he tries to have sex the normal way that involves feelings, he's incapable of it. He goes by his daily life as a person who remotes himself from anything in his life accept for porn and sex. He lives for it. He dines as he watches porn. He keeps porn at work...

This is definitely not a 'make feel good' film and after the screening there's a bitter taste to the whole experience that neither makes one to really dwell on it afterwards, nor it makes one sympathize with the main character, who, basically, lives and, I must add, wastes his life for the sake of meaningless sex and the overall obsession with sex. And even when the only close family member visits him - his little sister Sissy, brilliantly portrayed by Carey Mulligan - she's incapable to change his lifestyle. 

On the contrary, he regards to her as someone who interferes with and is not wanted in his life. Moreover, even the chemistry between the siblings is so odd and disturbing that despite knowing throughout the movie that they are sister and brother, one could question the 'actual' relationship between the two as they have no shame being full frontal in front of each other, have sex with other people next to each other and sleep in same bed. At first I even thought that it might be one of those 'sibling' relationships, which are the studies in the psychology classes about the deviant family relationships and which were very well shown in the film The Dreamers.

Not that his sister is less disturbed - she's dealing with her own demons, but she seems to be more normal than he is, just very confused. Being an 'artist' who didn't make it big in life, she seems to be a lost soul who does not belong anywhere, has no home to go to and no people to rely on. So she's running from life, which does not bring her any pleasure as she doesn't even know what to do with her life. Sissy comes to her brother to seek that missing part of her life - home, but when Brandon tells her that she can't stay with him and that she's useless for him, her response was 'but we are a family, we need each other, we should support each other...' While most of us could have taken her response as the natural response of a family member - family members should support each other - for the main character it didn't have the same meaning. Brandon's reply was: "what the use from you? you can even clean up after yourself...' And in that very instant, one realizes that his family values are very off - he does not understand the core of why the siblings should be there for each other.

Both characters are pretty much unfulfilled personally and professionally, and even with the little friends that they are surrounded with - in this case, it's just one friend, Brandon's boss, whose own life is far from perfect - having a family and continuously looking for the ways to have sex on a side, there's no really anyone in their lives who can help them to balance out their fears and deal with the demons.

All through the movie, the character, Brandon, is shown doing nothing but looking for sexual encounters - at the clubs, subway, restaurants and even at the office. His personal and work computers are jammed with porn. He has Skype porn services set up on a dial-up at home. And even when his sister ends up on the verge between the life and death, he ignores her for the sake of a three-some with the prostitutes, which leads to a very tragic end that puts - at least that's what the audience hopes for - a bit of the perspective to the main character's lifestyle, who might or might not rethink his entire life... But as we all know - is this really realistic?!

Would I suggest seeing it? Well, yes and no. Only if you are in very good spirits right now, have a good family relationship and a strong support group of friends - this way, the movie would end up being a sort of a 'social study' for you. But the experience would definitely make you feel very good and appreciate even more your personal family relationship - the normalcy of it, that is...