The problem for me was that the coffin was in a garage which faced onto the street and the door wouldn't shut properly. Given the choice, I'd rather not be written about in the papers for grave-fucking in public and so in the end I guess we just had to find somewhere a bit more civilised. At the time the coffin was almost irrelevant and just a surface to use before I murdered someone through frustration. If I'd just gone ahead and done it though not only would I have a better story but I guess I would have found out too whether ghosts really exist or not. If ever you needed an excuse to haunt someone, then seeing some chap bang his girlfriend against a box your corpse was too fat for would probably be it.
In 2011, Shame was released depicting the grim life of a sex addict for whom a quick coffin fuck wouldn't even register as foreplay. To say this film was grim would be a bit like saying Piers Morgan is a sweaty cunt. That also might be true but in both cases, they're also massive understatements. Starring as the lead character is Michael Fassbender's penis with a couple of quick but memorable cameos from Carey Mulligan's tits. Despite all the inevitable sex scenes however, the depravity in which characters are depicted makes it almost impossible to knock one out whilst watching. I say, “impossible” but as the writer and philosopher Elbert Hubbard once said, “No one gets very far unless he accomplishes the impossible at least once a day”. I've achieved it at least once a day since I first got access to the internet and I wasn't going to be beaten by Shame.
The film starts with a montage highlighting Fassbender's disassociation from the rest of society. Although he mingles with the public, he lives in a state of lonely isolation. Excess fucking has left him soulless, hollow and obsessed with simply finding the next fleshy, shag-bag of skin and bone to screw. Kind of like an urban Sméagol but with his obsession being focused on fingering an even more precious kind of ring.
Fassbender's character wanks and fucks his way through the film's opening like a disgraced glam rocker on a school open-day. However his routine of joyless cumming is ruined by the appearance of his equally messed up sister. As it turns out, she needs somewhere to stay and his den of debauchery is the only place for her. Unfortunately she proves to be a burden to his habit and so tensions quickly begin to rise. Although what she's doing looking at a single man's laptop is anyone's guess. It doesn't take a sex addict to have a hard drive full of porn. These days going to the computer repair shop is akin to going to confession, which is assuming you even bother attempting to get the machine fixed at all and don't just burn everything in the garden to avoid a potential prison sentence.
From this point on, the film simply shows us the depravity of a man hell bent on self-destruction. If you simply must have a mental breakdown, then too much wanking might sound like the most fun way to do it. However it's presented here in a similar grimness to how drinking and drugs are in films like Nil by Mouth and Requiem for a Dream. Although, on the bright side at least he's good-looking and charming enough to pull most women. With sex as his sole goal in life, the character would have easily killed himself within minutes if he'd been played by Gary Busey. I'm not saying that Busey is ugly, just that I'm not sure we as a species were designed to be 90% teeth. I imagine that his method of giving head would be similar to that of the shark from Jaws. A few sinking bites before he realises he doesn't like the taste, spits you out and then simply leaves you to die... just picture that for a moment...
With Shame being more character than plot-driven, the acting therefore needed to be particularly impressive. Of recent years, Fassbender has fast become one of the most respected actors of his generation. I think the first thing I saw him in was 300 in which he played one of the camp warriors defending their land from an even gayer army of offensive stereotypes. Although the chances are that most people probably know him from X-Men: First Class as super-villain Magneto. That was of course the prequel film in which we first got to see him show off his now iconic shiny, red helmet.
Here Fassbender is, predictably, brilliant, expertly portraying the sadness and hatred that his character has for himself. It's the kind of shameless performance you'd expect from a single mother pole-dancing at three o'clock in the morning in order to feed her kids. It's raw, honest and despite the nudity, smacks more of desperation than sexiness. With him constantly being linked to the role of 007, it's also kind of fun to watch this film as though it's about James Bond but where MI6 forgot to hire him. Without the licence to kill, all that would be left of Bond would be a socially retarded, misogynist with nothing to do but fuck about until he catches AIDs and gratefully dies. Thank God M hired him in time, is all I can think. The obvious message too being that no matter what your situation, when shagging around you should always be cautious of Pussy Galore.
The rest of the cast are also equally brilliant in their various supporting roles. A complement to Carey Mulligan would be that her performance was so riveting that not once did I rewind to that shot of her vagina. To do something as crude as that would be an insult to the dedication and brilliance of her acting. Admittedly I did pause it and zoom in. Fuck it- I'm not a monk. It was only for a few seconds and only to save the image for later. Good acting or not, you can't argue with the efficiency with which things get logged in the wank-bank. In fact I've probably seen that image so much since that whenever I close my eyes it has become my brain's default screensaver. Unfortunately she only appears naked for the one scene which is presumably what the title of the film is referring to.
For now, this is the only film by Steve Mcqueen that I've managed to see. However on the strength of Shame I think I really need to go back and check out Hunger. From lighting, framing and simply the pace of the film, it's obvious that McQueen's background is as an artist. Kind of like with the work of Julian Schnabel there's an experimental feel that suggest that their inspiration is simply not from other films of a similar genre. Despite the themes of sex in Shame, McQueen wisely chose not to have a cheap jazz funk soundtrack and a cast of Eastern European junkies. Instead of making typically grotty porn or smutty sexploitation, he has instead made a gritty, character drama highlighting a kind of addiction which might not be as fun as it superficially sounds. Having said that, I give it about five years before Michael Bay has this remade in 3D as a full blown horror, complete with semen shooting out of the screens and into our eyes. He's spent a career shitting all over cinema so jizzing into the audience's face seems the next logical step.
To conclude, Shame is 90 minutes of watching a man broken by the needs of his body. It's sort of like a modern day version of Alfie that is unsurprisingly much better than the actual modern day version of Alfie. I guess it's a film to make the rest of us feel better about not shagging as many people as we'd like to. My vadge-spaffing quota might not be hitting its depressingly low targets, but at least I'm not resorting to being sucked off by truckers in some gay dungeon. Not that I'm saying there's anything wrong with people who enjoy that kind of thing. What John Travolta does in his own time is completely his own business...
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