LFF 2011: Shame

Michael Fassbender continues his unstoppable rise in Shame, an art film that is both hypnotic and brave even when it seems to dare you to look away. You'll come out wanting to scrub yourself with hand-gel but not in a Contagion way.

In director Steve McQueen’s second feature, Fassbender plays Brandon a young executive in New York. He is sharply dressed, handsome and seemingly successful at work; clinching deals in boardrooms with backslaps and shit-eating grins. He is also a sex addict.

If we smirked at celebrities who have claimed this addiction in the past, Shame shows you what that really means, day to day. For Brandon, it’s all chat rooms, fuck-cams, and anonymous shags in back alleys. He cannot get through the working day without digitally relieving himself in a toilet cubicle and his office computer is crammed full of porn (he somehow gets away with that one).

We quickly understand the sex is the outward expression of a terrible loneliness and sense of alienation he feels. The arrival of his sister Sissy (Carey Mulligan) brings this into sharp relief. She’s a session singer whose life is a mess. She needs her brother and the last thing he can do is relate to her and offer a shoulder to cry on. When she rocks up at his apartment, she invades his space and fuels his self-loathing. How can he continue his ordered life of porn, masturbation and microwave dinners with his sister just feet away from him? Between the siblings there is a hint of – well, incest is too strong a word – fraught intimacy.

It seems that Sissy being young and sexually active, and also wanting to hug her brother becomes an exquisite torture for him. It brings out violent tendencies and sends him into the streets of New York. In an memorable scene Sissy takes Brandon’s boss back to the apartment for sex and her brother is spewed out into Manhattan; as the camera follows his long-stride jogging for what seems like an extraordinarily long tracking shot through several NY blocks. Steve McQueen’s fluid camera move captures the moment beautifully, with the eye of an artist who work has included experimental films and sculpture.

Both actors are extraordinary. Fassbender delivers a performance that is alarmingly raw. He strips his character literally bare as Brandon gazes for what seems like an eternity into Steve McQueen’s cameras, in various stages of sexual release – and sadness. You cannot imagine a non-European actor, like contemporary rising star Ryan Gosling, taking on this role. Carey Mulligan also has that skill of revealing emotion on film and making it appear effortless. Both actors’ commitment to their craft includes frank nudity but these instances are true to the material and not glamourised in any sense. I mentioned this was an art film. By that I mean it felt true to life and hard to watch as opposed to reassuring. It is certainly not erotic and, for me anyway, seemed more revealing of its characters inner emotions than Michael Winterbottom's blow-jobs and concerts film, 9 Songs.

Shame seems to scratch away at some darkness in contemporary times, of people locked away in apartments in front of laptops, webcams and mobile phones, grinding away in despair. However, Steve MacQueen’s film has a formal beauty that demands to be seen, like Taxi Driver but in a different palette, different era.

Sex and the City 2 review (*)

Ladies put down your Luella Classic Baby Gisele handbag: SATC2 is utter tripe.

Let's get some things straight, I have consulted with genuine females* and gay men before writing this and in my time I have watched and enjoyed the TV adventures of Carrie and co. I thought the first movie outing was abysmal: a pornographic celebration of label culture, a plainly stupid plot about two people who fail to sit down and discuss their wedding plans and a shameless cash-grab by the studio. Millions of dollars at the box office say I'm wrong. Or more accurately, it says there is a lack of movie-content aimed at women in the summer months and so the void is filled by crap. Surely a sequel could not be any worse?

This time Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker) is having marital problems as hubby ‘Big’ (Chris Noth) has taken to watching telly with his feet up, instead of whisking her away to swanky parties in Manhattan. He messes up big time when he buys her a flat-screen television for an anniversary present thinking they could cosy up and watch old movies together. You can see his point but fair enough, don't buy technology when something more romantic would be better. Carrie is gutted and less indicative of a 'relationship issue' we can all emote about than plain avarice she says: ‘How about some jewelry?

Meanwhile the other girls have issues in their lives that are: a) not given much screen time b) not allowed to involve partners c) subservient to the main sub-Benny Hill frolicks in the Middle East.

Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) is addicted to her office blackberry and is being sidelined at work.Charlotte is struggling so much with life. Woe is a super-wealthy New York mamma. Get this! The Irish nanny doesn’t wear a bra! Cue slow motion breast shots and worries about where Hubby is looking. Start the campaign; some sort of march for justice in Central park is surely in order. And Samantha is taking on the menopause with her normal gusto, popping vitamin pills like smarties.She's a successful women, who's funny and has never needed a man, still probably the most radical message SATC had to offer: it's hardly radical now of course.

She’s the one who whisks all of them away to Abu Dhabi (shot and looking like Morocco) on the trip which takes up most of the time. You could feel the love in the room for these characters but the story is flat and hashed together from C-grade episodes of the series. Carrie kisses someone unexpected.  It is a dumb plot device that makes no sense in her life. If they wanted to deal with marital ennui fair enough, they could have done it with a modicum of originality.

Now the business with local Muslim women in their Burkas is just lazy. Throwing condoms around in public is not particular funny in the Emirates. And to the scene where Muslim women rip off their Burkas to reveal designer clothes? I'm guessing they have more pressing issues to contend with.

The producers seem to be mixing up real women's rights concerns with the well known phenomenon of rich people in this region liking designer clothes. Again: dumb and lazy.

So, if you are looking for sex-stuff – nothing doing here apart from a quick Samantha-bonk, the clothes – nothing doing here, due to wardrobes being credit crunched (the original stylist has gone too).

At 146 minutes, it is mind-bogglingly long. It has raked in over £6 million at the UK box office in its first chart-topping weekend. If there is any karma in the world it will drop; when word gets out SATC is further past its sell-by date than Peter Waterman at the Eurovision.

*I haven't canvassed any chicks with dicks so cannot comment on whether they dig SATC2 and or not. Apologies.