TonightI saw Steve McQueen's latest film, "Shame", about a dysfunctional "sex addict" (played to brilliant and moving effect by Michael Fassbender) in New York. His "addiction" means he is unable to form relationships, even with his own sister (Carey Mulligan).
From the very first frame I knew this was going to be an excellent film, made with the acute eye of an artist. In one way it is a portrait, even a love song, of New York, of the back streets, the deserted riverside and sleazy bars. No punches are pulled in the raw depiction of the underworld of the city. And not much is spared in the depiction of the main character's uneasy relationship with his life.
His obsessive private life coexists alongside the false bonhomie and hypocrisy of office life. Sometimes these worlds meet, as when his married boss has a disastrous fling with the vulnerable sister. I see the film as a comment on the vacuity and loneliness of life in consumer society. There is a brilliant sequence as a desperate Fassbender runs at night past the shops of New York to the strains of the Goldberg Variations.
This film is not entertainment, thank goodness. Instead it is a work of art, touching on some deep and painful truths.
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