2012 Movies - Shame

Shame

In New York City, Brandon's carefully cultivated private life -- which allows him to indulge his sexual addiction -- is disrupted when his sister Sissy arrives unannounced for an indefinite stay.

Hmm, the synopsis of this one doesn't really reveal too much about it, mind you, there isn't much to reveal. This was one of those 'glimpses' into the world of one man and his sexual appetite. And it is a big appetite... in more ways than one.

If you don't like full frontals from either men or women, I'd look away for 30% of the film. It's one of those ones where you look, but you're very aware you're in a room with 30 strangers, and as I sit on the back row I tend to look around to see how other people are reacting (guilty pleasure!), well, I had to make sure there weren't any perverts enjoying it too much!

I didn't like this film when I was watching it. The shots are too long, it seems. As though the camera has just been left 'on' and you're sat watching someone's dull life. But it kind of works at the same time. After all the sex and violence, and watching a man destroy himself with his own obsessions, I actually came out of the cinema with a lot of appreciation for it. 

I liked that it wasn't a full story, it really was a look into the life of a sex-aholic. It ended with so many unanswered questions about why he was the way he was, what was with his relationship with his sister, what the hell was he going to do about it all, that I couldn't stop thinking about it. I still can't to be honest. 

All in all I like films that leave me with something to think about. I read it today in one of my uni books, it was a quote from a story and it went:

"...nothing is so distasteful to me as when, in a story or a novel, the stage on which the imaginary world has been in action is swept so clean by the historic broom that not the smallest grain or particle of dust is left on it; when you go home so completely sated and satisfied that you have not the faintest desire left to have another peep behind the curtain..."

It's very apt, of many films, but especially this one. 

Final rating: