Steve McQueen
Shame

Shame is an incredibly powerful film, both visually and emotionally, which is a rare occurrence. Powerful right from the title, so simple and explanatory with a meaning that is harsh, deep, and as direct as a punch.

Shame is first and foremost a film about the pain of living, as few others manage to be.

McQueen, a director of enormous talent, clearly has a strong artistic interest in the captivity and martyrdom of bodies. As in Hunger, so clearly conveyed by the beatings in 12 Years a Slave, so is sex in Shame. Sex here is never an act of joy and pleasure, but merely an expression of suffering, alienation, dependence. And not only that, because Shame is a human odyssey that delves deeply into loneliness and pain, beautifully portrayed by Carey Mulligan (the suicidal sister) and by Fassbender. Who here offers a performance (which became a cult especially among female audiences) that is intense, anguished, and extraordinary, not as extreme as in Hunger but, in my opinion, even more memorable. Because there he brought the heroic and popular figure of Bobby Sands to the screen, and with it the trauma, abuse, and cruelty of the Thatcher era. Here, however, he is desperate, unpleasant, with nothing ideological but simply prey to obsessions, impulses, perversions. Gentle only with the secretary at work with whom, however, he cannot have a sexual relationship as she is not a prostitute or a casual encounter.

Fassbender who, admittedly, has often been wasted in roles not worthy of his talent in various blockbusters, but with McQueen has undoubtedly given his best.

McQueen also has a passion for long static sequences. The one in Hunger became famous, the one where the last, very intense dialogue between brother and sister takes place is harrowing. And Shame is, as far as I'm concerned, his masterpiece. His best film as it is the least political but more icy, suggestive, and original.

In Shame there is great cinema, with Sean Bobbit's icy cinematography and the soundtrack, with Badalamenti-like tones, by Harry Escott enhancing the atmosphere of a raw and existential metropolitan drama. Whose protagonist, seated on the subway with his turquoise scarf, is already an icon of this decade.

A cinema from which it is impossible not to be struck.