Everything but a Shame

Two broken siblings on a perpetual state of slow self destruction find each other together for a few days. They hurt each other in ways they can't even understand and then their own lives just collapse to be reborn again in the same spiral, one step nearer to hell.

The main character pushes everything and everyone as far as he can and the film does exactly the same. There's always a distance between the spectator and the character. This distance works as a kind of false psychological transference making it more organic and real than other dramas. You feel that the character is pushing you away as he is everyone else. Sometimes the camera isn't even oriented towards their faces but that oblique way to show us their emotions makes this particular script so real and tense as any closeup.



The long shots, the classical music eclipsing reality, the silences, the slow pace, the clear lighting and the occasional shadows they all tell us a history in this movie of few words. It's a great feeling when the cinematography, the script and the directing work in this great but subtle way to frame the movie. If all of this is framing then the acting is the main subject of this sad piece of art, ain't it? Yes it is.

Fassbender is a great, great actor. He shows just what's enough and lets the rest come from those who are watching making it feels true where any other super emotional style would fail. Of course there are some moments when all the truth about the character shows up in the movie, always in silence, no words needed when raw emotion is being exposed. Too raw you say? Not for me, I like it bloody.



There´s a lot of interesting elements at play in this movie. One of my favourites is that there's very little advancement in the characters. Brother and sister end up exactly as they started and none could have expected otherwise except for them to end even worse. Both are broken but there are enough differences to make it interesting. Where she isn't able to construct any kind of healthy life for herself he has got a good job, a good lifestyle and a good structure to brace himself to but all of it is ready to fall over some major cracks in the foundations. That fall is scarier to him that anything else but he is dying for it.

An insightful view of a secret addiction.



9/10