Shame 2011

[BluraySe7en]

Shame 2011

Having blazed the screen in 2008 with his hugely controversial début Hunger, Turner prize winning director Steve McQueen has followed it up with no less risky Shame, having approached a political hot potato with his first film chooses that other subject that gets people riled, Sex! McQueen choosing to utilise his leading man from his début the exceptional Michael Fassbender.

Fassbender is Irishman Brandon who now resides in New York, an incredibly private man and single, which allows him to indulge in his sex addiction. When his younger and unstable sister Sissy ( Carey Mulligan) turns up uninvited at his apartment, Brandon feels trapped unable to indulge in his addiction comfortably. Sissy a club singer who chooses to come and go unpredictably forcing Brandon to question his lifestyle, choosing to ignore her cries for help coupled with his own mental state, things quickly spiralling out control as his condition leads him into the darkest of places.

McQueen in his début seemed to wear his artist credentials big and bold, 10 minute sequences of a prison guard mopping urine from Hunger, here he is more restrained but his distinctive style is still up there on the screen. Opening the film with a montage of Brandon's lifestyle, framed beautifully but capturing the mechanical actions of his addiction with brutal clarity New York photographed with an unrelenting nightmarish bleakness, returning cinematographer Sean Bobbitt assisting again making a formidable team. Harry Escott providing a powerful minimal score.

Mulligan an actress of incredible talent has never been so magnetic, a hugely brave and stark portrayal, both with Fassbender, particularly a scene where Sissy sings a stripped down version of New York New York, McQueen focusing up close on her face as she intones beautifully while cutting back to Brandon's reaction to the performance, both Mulligan and Fassbender's readings giving the such emotional resonance to the sequence.

Fassbender who seems to one of the busiest actors around already having clocked up a major role in a Hollywood blockbuster, a new reading of Jane Eyre and the forthcoming David Cronenberg film Dangerous Method alongside Viggo Mortensen this year gives what is undoubtedly his most impressive riveting performance to date the pain etched on his face. Sequences going from humour to outright horror with Fassbender alongside Mulligan simply electrifying.

McQueen and Fassbender looking to team up for a third time for a future project in pre production Twelve Years a Slave (alongside Chiwetel Ejiofor with also the surprise casting of one Brad Pitt) seem to be continuing their partnership and on evidence of Hunger and now this their second film is a pairing which is hoped will flourish not unlike other actor director pairings of the past.

This is adult film making with a capital A and considering the amount of sexual imagery on display it is a testament to McQueen and his team that this at no point becomes titillating, their will be those who cry pornography and have already but this is by no means an arousing experience, an assault on the senses and an emotional journey. Shame maybe it's title but it is anything but a Shameful achievement for it's cast and crew.

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