Stranger on Earth

The end of 2011 belonged to serious, confrontational cinema. Lynne Ramsay’s We Need to Talk about Kevin and Steve McQueen’s Shame (read my review of Shame here:  http://ed-is-a-stranger-on-earth.blogspot.nl/2012/02/true-fiction-steve-mcqueens-shame.html ) shocked art-house audiences everywhere by revealing to them the most candid portraits of contemporary society. It is telling that both films were ignored by the fuddy-duddy fogies at the Academy Awards. This embarrassing blunder should say more about the Academy than the two films, which are made of much weightier (and therefore more relevant) stuff than any of the 2012 Oscar-winners.    Ramsay’s We Need to Talk about Kevin is relentless in the way it broaches its subjects. Are all mothers naturally maternal? it asks us to consider from the get-go. We see Eva (a stellar Tilda Swinton) struggle with motherhood, trying to come to grips with a new addition to her carefree life with her husband. The fact tha...

Once every few years, a motion picture would come along and show us the ugly truth of being human.  For 2011-2012, it is undoubtedly the challenging, NC-17-rated Shame by director Steve McQueen, a  psychological drama about sexual addiction that pulls no punches. The subject matter, needless to say, is unpalatable to the ordinary moviegoer; but if you are one constantly in search of thought-provoking materials and are unfazed by uncompromising directors such as David Lynch and Lars von Trier, then you will do well to give yourself over to Shame . Stigmatised from the start and labelled by the press as the “sex addiction movie,” Shame must overcome its unsavoury image before it can even begin to convince its audience that it contains within its sordidness a message so universal any man living in an urban jungle in the 21 st century could relate to. The good news is the film is elegant and captivating right from the opening shot (we get to see a naked Brandon – a ...