Shame

I think Shame puts a human face on a topic that often isn’t taken seriously: sex addiction. Sure most of us have sex on the mind at one point or another, but for some (many, even), it is an addiction that can overtake and even ruin us if we allow it to. It could lead to a path of self-destruction, as is established to us in the form of Fassbinder.

****

Brandon (Michael Fassbinder, in a brave performance) just can’t get his mind off of sex. He is obsessed with sex all the time. At the company where he works, he’s part of the “hip clique” of execs making lots of coin and success allows for fancy apartments and the ability to either pick up stunning beauties or purchase them. Brandon’s privileged at having secrecy for the most part which allows him to indulge his sexual avarice, but this will be challenged by the sudden emergence of troubled sister, Sissy (Carey Mulligan, willing to be just as courageous as Fassbinder in her nakedness (both physically and artistically). Sissy had been staying with a boyfriend who appears to have had control over her and Brandon can’t stand her weakness for him. Calling to him, begging to return, and promising to do whatever he wishes just infuriates Brandon. Sissy is a singer with a fine voice, but her emotional problems are a hurdle she has a hard time with.

I think what makes Fassbinder’s performance so rich is the lack of dialogue. How he feels is communicated in facial expression. You see the frustration, the growing attraction, realizations that torment and torture him, and the pangs of desperation that come with the inability to fight off that sexual need asking to be satiated. When he’s mad enough, you know it because Brandon slams and tosses things. And there’s rage in him. He has a silence to him, but his face speaks what words don't: sometimes he's walking as if a boulder weighs heavily upon him. Nothing quite bothers him like Sissy. Sissy accepts an “invitation” to bed Brandon’s boss, David (married with kids, no less), in Brandon’s apartment, and this truly, royally rattles him. David, the next day, tells him that his hard drive was loaded with all degrees of porn, perhaps responsible for a virus that struck the company’s network as a whole.

Can someone like Brandon have a healthy, normal relationship with a woman? That is basically what lies at the heart of Shame. This and Brandon's shake-up in his life thanks to Sissy who interferes with the status quo. Someone like Brandon who desires a different kind of physical contact instead of intimate and personal just has a hard time with commitment and relationships, so even a conversation about such topics leaves him rather uncomfortable (his date with a co-worker at a restaurant shows this).

I don’t know if it was intentional or just a happy accident, but on the subway, there’s a sign that reads: “ALWAYS IMPROVING: NON-STOP” and Brandon sits right below it. This after a sort of descent into darkness where he has instigated a beating from the boyfriend of a girl he was attempting to seduce in a bar, ended up receiving oral sex in a gay bar, and then went to an apartment to engage in sexual relations with several women (he probably paid). His descent came after he told his sister that he wanted her out of his apartment and life. She tries calling him on his cell, but he’s too busy wallowing in the abyss. In the hospital, Brandon surveys Sissy’s arm, noticing all the cut scars. These two do need each other. They are all each other have. By the end, you’d think Brandon was a heroin addict as he crumples to the ground in misery.

I’m not sure if it was intentional, but there are these scenes that almost feel potentially incestuous between Sissy and Brandon. A cuddle in his bed, as Sissy crawls in the covers and wants to be near him. I think primarily she just wants affection. She wants to be treated fairly and honestly. Brandon isn’t in a place to be that person. He is so wrapped in this insulated world that giving himself to Sissy seems unlikely. His rage fits (she catches him masturbating and notices a live-cam naked chick on the other end ready to “service” her as well as him if so inclined) scare her into apologies she shouldn't have to make but because his private world has been invaded, Sissy is the enemy. There’s this rather long scene that startled me. Sissy is taking a shower when Brandon comes home, not expecting to find his sister but some burglar. They share a look back and forth while she remains naked. He doesn’t necessarily ogle her body or anything, but the fact that he doesn’t leave while she stands there not the least bit bothered by his intrusion confused me. I’m not sure what was up with that. Maybe it was just the comfort of her in front of him, not particularly concerned because he’s her bro, but still it was a bit awkward to me.

 

There was an attractive red head towards the beginning of the film, dressed conservatively, nothing that cries for eyes to notice her without turning away (well, she dresses causal, yet chic). You can see when she catches Brandon on the subway, he arouses her. She even seems to become wet by desire for him, leaning back her head, slightly closing her eyes, and for pockets of time perhaps imagines what it would be like to have him embracing her sexually. But after this, there’s a shame that appears and she needs to get off that subway as a ring on her finger seems to indicate she belongs to another. At the end of the film, this same women appears, but her hair is wild and free, like a mane that has been pinned and now emerges alive. This goes for her expression and directness in gaze to him. No longer is there shame, but she is openly (without word) telling him that there’s an option available to “meet somewhere”. If he will take the plunge as he has times before is left up to our imagination. I can’t see him turning her down, although, like so many times before, it will end in great sex with little return.

 

A pivotal scene came when Brandon tried to have sex with the co-worker and was never able to get an erection. No matter how he tried, the end result was impotent failure. Yet, once she leaves, and he is jaded by this, Brandon is successful in banging a neighborly sexually active woman known for openly taking it from behind up against her apartment window for all to see. It seems that if the sex doesn’t require emotion besides lust and desire, Brandon is fine, but when it is with a possible love interest, romantic and intimate, he is an abject failure. But we had seen what simple sex, after a while, did to him. So where does he go? The road ahead will be an interesting one for Brandon.