Acting and directing performance of the year for me... "Shame"

Had to make a tribute to one of the most memorable movies I've seen this year, "Shame". 

This movie is for those who applaud a bit of provocation from the artists, who are open to go on a journey with the characters, even if the journey is dark and bleak, those who see movies not be merely entertained, but to be moved, to feel, to find beauty where there is none. 

As I was watching this film I kept changing my thinking and feeling toward the character and the film in general, it was only after I had sunk into it when I understood that the director Steve McQueen was creating this movie as a pure channeling of art. My feeling of the piece was that it was visual and free of moralizing, there wasn't any message the film tried to give (though most critics and viewers of course are ready to find it) other than being a portrait of a soul in a time (but then hasn't it always been relevant) and the pure notion of addiction, familiar to many. I commend this movie for so much but mainly for the fearless and flawless acting, and for the respect that the director and writer has for the viewer. 

"'Midnight Cowboy." "Carnal Knowledge." "Eyes Wide Shut." "Black Swan." To the canon of indelible New York sex melodramas, let us welcome "Shame." This transfixing new entry follows a wolf through his urban terrain with the dispassionate gaze of an NC-17 wildlife documentary. Brandon (Michael Fassbender) sniffs out his quarry's pheromones on the subway, at bars, even in the glassy office suite where he is a star player doing something vague and lucrative. His approach is sure and feral, climaxing in kinetic, desensitized copulation and release without satisfaction.

"Shame" is emotionally grueling, but the performances are riveting, the visuals are stunning and bruised humanity oozes from every scene.

Fassbender is a magnetic camera subject, dapper, knee-bucklingly handsome, with the flawless physique of a health-club devotee. It's what he hides, though, that makes him fascinating. His powerhouse performance is a combo platter of raw, emotionally naked moments and secrecy. You watch him in an ecstasy of hypothesis, scanning for clues. Brandon's apartment is as clean and functional as an Apple store. When you glimpse what's hiding in his closet, it's like a slap in the face.

The poetic film, written and directed by English visual artist Steve McQueen, appreciates Manhattan's polarities of antiseptic sheen and grime. The camera shuttles between chic conference rooms, hotels and restaurants and skeevy Chelsea street corners and docks. Beneath the glamorous "creative class" setting with its fetishized interior design and wardrobe, ugly things are wriggling in the dirt.

We follow Brandon for an unspecified period, which is appropriate; to an addict weekends and months look alike. We see him playing wingman to his clumsy, chattering boss David, a would-be player (James Badge Dale), caring for his sister, Sissy (Carey Mulligan), who needs a couch to crash on after a breakup, and circling his co-worker Marianne (Nicole Beharie). Between these relationships, Brandon has sex on an industrial scale with prostitutes and strangers.

There's something deeply destructive about Brandon's drive. He tells Marianne that his longest relationship lasted four months, and the prospect of commitment demolishes him. When she introduces a note of tenderness into their relationship, Brandon's libido short-circuits. His only real smile comes when he's taunting a bruiser to deck him for groping the jealous man's girl.

"Shame" explores Brandon's loveless compulsion with graphic explicitness and understated insight. There's a radioactive erotic tension between Fassbender and Mulligan, who plays his cabaret singer sister with ripe-lipped sensuality. When this cuddly/carnal gamine shows up on his doorstep, he's alternately protective, resentful and guilt-stricken. We note the old scars on her wrists, her hospital bracelet, her casual nudity around Brandon and sexual acting-out with David, and write our own back story.

"We're not bad people," she tells her brother, "we just come from a bad place." It's a great line that could indicate anything from a pathological childhood to Original Sin.

In one of the film's many bravura passages, Sissy croons "New York, New York" in a glittering cabaret. As Brandon listens, his carefully defended composure cracks and he sheds a tear. It might be for himself, or for Sissy's soon-to-be-broken dreams. As the camera holds on Fassbender's infinitely expressive face, you know you are witnessing the implosion of a soul."

Colin Covert "Star Tribune"