“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?