Monday, December 19, 2011

shame (2011). directed by steve mcqueen.


i find this movie sad and the anti-hero profoundly lonely. dysfunctional people often find the last resort to feel something by having sex. and lots of sex. which makes it even more sad because in the end, even something as intimate as sex, failed to produce the desired result - which is human connection. he is an automaton going through the motions of having sex as natural as sleeping and eating, not because he feels good having it, but because it is time and it has to be done, otherwise he will be at the edge of sanity with raw anxiety gnawing at him. i thought his relationship with his sister is odd - i have siblings and we are close but we don't touch each other that way, which is suggestive of something forbidden that had happened in the past - that defined his stand-offish personality, being there but purposely not feeling it. 

the movie is full of sexual acts but they were joyless. those people looked desperate to me in their attempts to feel something and fill in whatever void they have in their lives. but sex, like drugs and all kinds of addictions we have out there, is a poor replacement for the missing things that we spend the rest of our lives looking. 

the movie, and fassbender, remind me of american psycho (2000) and requiem for a dream (2000), of the painful kind. 

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