I have been told that for a gal, I have boyish taste in films. My all-time favourite director is Paul Verhoeven, I believe Snake Plissken is probably the coolest character in the history of cinema and nothing makes more happy than an over-the-top Steven Seagal’s action flick. It is true that I am a bit of tom-boy in this aspect but there is one thing that prevents from being the ideal male geek partner: I cannot bear horror movies. Well, I can watch them but I avoid doing it as I know the consequence: months of insomnia. I won’t tell you what became of my life after seeing The Exorcist. You would conclude that I am a basketcase. I feel alright though sharing with you what happened when I saw the remake of Dawn of the Dead (2004).

“Nothing happens in this movie” was I unanimously told by a group of friends who went to see SHAME when it came out in december. After watching it myself last weekend, I kept thinking of what they said and I couldn’t help but to find it quite ironic. Indeed, “nothing (supposedly) happens”  in a movie that appears to me as dealing precisely with the feeling of emptiness.

A lot happens in Shame, actually. It is not a film in which Michael Fassbender spends his time exhibiting his penis like I have also been told. It is strange that people would perpetuate this lie - in an obvious dishonest effort to reduce the film to its nudity - when you only see him naked frontally at the beginning of the movie and not during a sexual encounter. Furthermore, despite long shots during which not a word is whispered, Shame is not an hermetic or elitist film. Although our participation is required to understand what is not named, everything is showed to us so it is not exhausting to follow the path Steve McQueen has taken us upon. Finally, I read that some viewers found it laughable. It got wondering why were people being so put off by Shame ? Why did they find it insignifiant, unrealist or/and ridiculous ? Why were they ashamed of Shame?