In my Melancholia review I stated that I have a pathological inability to give up on a film. However, I do have to admit that I gave up on a movie a few months ago. The film was The Girl Who Played With Fire. I don’t know why, but it almost put me in a coma and I had to stop halfway through. I never finished it.

Which is a shame because I really enjoyed The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. It certainly wasn’t a flawless film - the direction lacked imagination and it looked like it had been filmed for TV - but it was an enjoyable diversion. I guess I began to switch off once we got into the silliness of Lisbeth’s family tree.

As you’d expect, the Hollywood remake of Stieg Larsson’s novel is bigger, louder and glossier. But is it better? I would say in almost every regard, yes. The acting and the directing are far superior and Fincher’s version has far more tension.

A surprising element of watching the remake is realising how little of the original I remembered. I couldn’t even remember who the killer was, which is a pretty damning indictment of how little the original film stayed with me. Despite the heaviness of the violence, it turned out to be a pretty lightweight exercise.

So here comes Fincher to give the story the treatment it deserves. His film has far more weight and promises not to fade from the memory like a wisp.

The key scene for me is the torture of Blomkvist (Daniel Craig). I haven’t been that on edge for a while. Sure I knew he wasn’t going to die and yes I knew Lisbeth was going to turn up at the last second to save his life, but I still ended up getting an adrenaline rush. And unusually for me - I usually find it surprisingly easy to detach myself from moments of horror - I felt anxious when Blomkvist’s tormentor puts a plastic bag over his head. I’ve always found the very notion of suffocation horrific and Fincher prolongs the agony. And then with some POV shots, he allows you to step into Blomkvist’s shoes. It’s a wonderfully, horrifically powerful scene, which is made even more disturbing by the use of an Enya song. ‘Just kill me already! I can’t take any more of that pseudo-Celtic bollocks!’

Just as the scene is reaching breaking point, Lisbeth turns up and saves the day with a golf club. She smashes the man’s face and then chases him on her motorbike until he crashes his car and burns to death. Wait a minute, who’s James Bond here?

Of course Lisbeth is a pure male fantasy. A hot goth girl with a fantastic body and cool tattoos who’s as capable with a taser as she is with a laptop, who will hop on your penis for sweaty sex, save your life at the last moment, tenderly ask you permission to kill your tormentor, destroy your other enemy by embezzling billions of dollars by dressing up as an icy blonde and then spend some of the cash buying you an awesomely rad leather jacket. Oh, and she also likes girl on girl action. Who but a man could conceive of such a creation?

But even though she stretches every thread of credibility, Lisbeth is a fantastic heroine. Strong, resourceful and handy with a dildo, she’s kind of James Bond meets Batman meets Siouxsie Sioux meets Rain Man. Or put another way, she’s kind of a goth Sherlock Holmes. If Sherlock Holmes was a bisexual girl and wanted to relentlessly plug Apple products.

At the beginning of the film, we find out that Lisbeth has been declared mentally incompetent by the State and has been appointed a legal guardian. In a twist that would make Republican heads explode and have them bemoaning the evils of socialism, Lisbeth’s government appointed guardian turns out to be a colossal pervert. In return for favourable reports and continued wellfare checks, he expects sweaty blow-jobs and brutal assfuckings. Yeah, and you capitalists think that getting government assistance doesn’t have any strings attached!

For Lisbeth’s rapist, though, there’s a worthy punishment. Unbeknownst to him, Lisbeth videoed one of the rapes. And then just so he can know what it feels like, she tasers him, ties him up and rams a huge dildo up his hairy arse. She even kicks it a couple of times to make it penetrate him even deeper. What a girl! And then just as a little cherry on top of this sad, sweaty, bloody, quivering, sobbing man cake, Lisbeth tattoos his chest, telling everyone that he’s a rapist pig. Again this is borderline ridiculous but it works a treat.

What’s fairly surprising about The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is that it takes a while for our lead characters to team up. At first Lisbeth is busy with her perverted Benny Andersson look-a-like guardian and Blomkvist is investigating a murder for a wealthy businessman. The unsolved murder of the businessman’s grandniece occurred decades ago, but it still consumes the old man.

Of course the nuts and bolts of the murder investigation are probably the least interesting aspect of the film. When Blomkvist and Lisbeth do finally team up there’s a lot of staring at strategically placed Apple products and lots of rooting through files and photos. It’s perfectly entertaining but it isn’t anything we haven’t seen a million times before.

Much more fun is the development of the relationship between Blomkvist and Lisbeth. At first it seems like it’s going to be a mentor/tutor kind of relationship. But then in one scene Lisbeth makes a move on Blomkvist and they become lovers. Again this twist flirts with the ridiculous but like so much of the film it works effortlessly. Maybe I’m more accepting of how out of the blue everything happens because they’re supposed to be Swedish? Is it wrong of me to think of them either as relentless bed-hoppers, suicide victims or maniac chefs? ‘I’m a hurreeble-a xenuphube-a. Cheeckee in a besket!’

I don’t even care that Daniel Craig doesn’t attempt a Swedish accent. Frankly, I’d rather someone not try than try an accent and fail miserably.

Given the familiar elements of the murder mystery, the key hook for me was whether Lisbeth and Blomkvist would end up together. They make a great team and Craig and Rooney Mara have excellent chemistry. And given the tenderness that is opened up in Lisbeth by her love for Blomkvist, I had a surprising emotional investment in the characters (maybe this is why the torture scene is so tense). So I couldn’t help but want to slap Craig’s character when he decides to go off with his previous lover and business partner (played by Robin Wright Penn). Seriously? Between a blonde who has wrinkles that makes it look like she has a vagina on her neck and a girl who killed the guy who was torturing you, who managed to embezzle billions of dollars without any effort and who has finally opened herself up and bought you a killer leather jacket, you chose the blonde with a vagina neck! Well done Blomkvist, well done!

‘Ve-a cume-a frum zee lund ooff zee ice-a und snoo,
Frum zee meednight soon vhere-a zee hut spreengs floo
Zee hemmer ooff zee guds veell dreefe-a oooor sheeps tu noo lunds,
Tu feeght zee hurde-a, seenging und cryeeng: Felhella, I em cumeeng!’

It would be an understatement to say that Lars von Trier polarises audiences. It seems that half the people think he’s a genius, while the other half think he’s a talentless idiot.

I certainly belong to the former but Melancholia is a first for me - I experienced both ends of the von Trier spectrum in one movie. The first half is an appalling, crappy, half-baked mess while the second half is a powerhouse.

The first half details the wedding reception for newlyweds Justine (Kirsten Dunst) and Michael (Alexander Skarsgard). The first time we see them, they’re in the back of a limo as the driver tries to navigate a narrow country road. He has difficulties trying to get his car round a particularly tight corner.

I immediately took a dislike to the couple. They make snide comments about the driver and then when they finally go to help him, it seems like they’re trying to have fun at his expense - both of them have a go at trying to get the car round the tight corner but it seems like Justine has never driven before; she can only giggle when she smashes the front of the car into a cinder block (at one point the driver begs them not to damage the vehicle).

They arrive a couple of hours late to their reception. Given these circumstances, you’d think the newlyweds would be apologetic and compliant. Instead they immediately run off to goof about in the stables. They behave like children.

The friends and family of these nitwits aren’t much better. Justine’s mother (Charlotte Rampling) is a contender for the most miserable person on the planet, Justine’s father (John Hurt) is the resident ‘comedian’ who thinks that it’s a great idea to fuck around with the waiting staff, Justine’s boss (Stellan Skarsgard) is a selfish prick who doesn’t attempt to hide the fact that he’s only interested in Justine for her ability to make money, Justine’s sister (Charlotte Gainsbourg) is dull and gloomy and Justine’s brother-in-law (Kiefer Sutherland) is a wealthy jackass. There’s a very high concentration of pricks.

The opening hour ends up serving as an anti-Deer Hunter. In Cimino’s film, the wedding reception helps us to identify with the characters and to form an attachment to them, so that when they’re exposed to the horrors of war, the pain is almost unbearable. In Melancholia, the reception seems to distance us from them.

It’s made clear that Justine is a troubled woman but her relationship with her new husband is so hollow and facile that it almost beggars belief. At one point he gives her a photo of an apple orchard - apparently he’s bought the land in the hope that they’ll grow old together there. But when Justine is called away from the room, she leaves the photo behind. So much for happily ever after.

But as thoughtless and uncaring as this is from Justine, her husband doesn’t really deserve any sympathy. At the end of the evening he tries consummate the marriage, but he’s about as smooth as a crocodile and Justine brushes him away. The man has all the charm and class of a sewer rat.

The film’s nadir occurs when Justine leaves her husband to gloomily wander her brother-in-law’s golf course. Following her is one of her boss’s lackeys. Rather than tell the guy to piss off, Justine pushes him to the ground and fucks him. The staging is horrible. Apparently the kid gets an erection in about two seconds and then we see Justine bouncing on top of him - it looks like she’s riding his stomach.

But of course the scene doesn’t work on a deeper level either. I get that Justine is supposed to possess a depressive personality. And I know that manic depressives are prone to wild mood swings and engage in self-destructive behaviour, but the acting and the writing just aren’t good enough. Justine just jumps from Point A to Point B to Point C without adequately communicating the inner turmoil that is leading her to behave like this.

There was one point in Melancholia when I was ready to completely write it off. After getting fucked by Justine, the lackey tells her that they should go into business together, saying that, after all, they’ve had ‘good sex’. [insert sound of a cosmic forehead slap ringing across the galaxy]

Thank fuck then that I have an almost pathological inability to abandon a film, because the second half is amazing.

The planet Melancholia is heading towards Earth. The official story is that it’ll just pass by. However, other people say that it’s going to smash right into the Earth and destroy everything.

The second half begins with a severely depressed Justine staying with her sister Claire at her enormous mansion. Justine can barely move and finds even the simplest everyday functions impossible - she can’t even raise her legs to get in the bath. Obviously distraught, Claire does her best to raise Justine’s spirits. In one scene she cooks her sister her favourite dish - meatloaf. At first Justine seems to enjoy it but then she begins sobbing, saying that the meal tastes like ashes.

Her marriage in ruins and her life a complete mess, it seems like Justine has already experienced her own private apocalypse. It’s only when a much bigger disaster begins to loom that she rouses from her slumber and returns to something like herself. When she’s already lost everything, what is there to fear?

Indeed, it seems that Justine openly welcomes the end of life on Earth. Like she’s suddenly become Werner Herzog or something, she proclaims that all life on Earth is evil and it deserves to die. And then when Melancholia does its fly-by of Earth, she welcomes it like a siren - in the un-Earthly glow of the rogue planet, she bathes nude in the river. Perhaps Melancholia is a welcome release from her terrestrial problems.

Claire’s husband John doesn’t believe that Melancholia presents any danger. He and his son watch the planet get closer and the fly-by is a cause for celebration. His son even invents a contraption that helps track the rogue planet. With a stick and a loop of wire, he’s able to see if Melancholia is getting smaller or bigger. As predicted, after the fly-by, Melancholia begins to move away. It seems like everyone is safe.

In the morning, though, there’s an eerie quiet. Claire goes to the stables and sees that the horses are completely still and calm. She then finds her husband’s body - he’s killed himself with an overdose. Claire rushes back to the terrace of her mansion, picks up her son’s invention and sees that Melancholia has come back and is closer to the Earth than it was before.

Claire’s reaction to the impending disaster is sheer panic. She has a son, a good home and a comfortable life, and she doesn’t want to lose these things. Justine on the other hand is icily calm. She even mocks Claire’s idea of having a farewell party with drink and music - the end of the world is imminent and you want to have wine and music; how bourgeois!

Justine realises that hysteria won’t accomplish anything and makes sure that her nephew experiences the least amount of trauma possible. She says that she’s going to make him a magic cave out of sticks and that it’ll protect them. After so much selfishness and self-absorption, she finally achieves a state of grace with this act of decency and kindness.

It’s quite amazing how tense the final half of the film is, especially as we already know the ending - the prologue gives it away. The spectre of death looms over everyone and the inevitability of their demise is crushing. We get to see all of their hopes dashed, we get to see them panic and struggle and flail around like insects avoiding a boot that wants to stomp them - it’s a psychologically stressful film, especially if you have a family; you’ll do anything to protect them but what if you’re completely powerless?

It’s also a fantastic decision to have such a small focus. At one point I wondered how the rest of the world was reacting, but what does it matter? We’ve already seen mass hysteria in disaster films - it’s never particularly interesting. But here we get to see a small group of people dissolve right before our eyes. They’re literally crushed by forces beyond their control, which reminds us of how precarious our own lives are. We have far less control than we think.

The only thing that keeps this film from greatness is the abysmal first half. von Trier doesn’t have to pander to his audience but some measure of likeability in his characters would have given it a bigger jolt at the end. Or not even likeability - I just need a better understanding of the characters and their actions. A better actor than Dunst would have been welcome too. Although I do have to say that she improves greatly in the second half.

But you can’t help but feel that von Trier is happy that these people are being destroyed. This is great if you’re into schadenfreude, but not so great if you want a deeper emotional resonance.

Michael Fassbender’s cock. I’m sure that’s why you’re reading this review. You’ve heard the rumours and the murmurs on the internet and just want to know if he really does have a big dick. Well, the answer to that is: yes, Fassbender is hung. Feel free now to go searching for a gif of his dick in all its glory.

With the important stuff out of the way, I can talk about the comparatively boring subject matter of the film itself. Filmed by Steve McQueen, who made the surprisingly magnificent Hunger, it tells the tale of Brandon, a man who literally has sex on the brain. Yes, this is a man whose office breaks consist of him having a quick wank in the bathroom and a man who watches porn the very second he gets home - apparently masturbating is infinitely more important than showering or eating.

‘My Ding-A-Ling, My Ding-A-Ling, won't you play with My Ding-A-Ling’

On his way home from work (where he’s already destroyed the hard drive on his computer because of the colossal amount of porn he’s been watching), Brandon is in full predator mode. On the subway he spots an attractive young woman and begins staring at her. The woman seems a little bit uncomfortable at first but Brandon is nothing if not persistent. We slowly see the woman crack and her discomfort changes - she now becomes uncomfortable for a different reason. She’s uncomfortable because she’s attracted to this man. We then see that she has an engagement ring and a wedding ring.

When the woman exits the subway car, Brandon follows. But the woman disappears into thin air. For a few moments Brandon is disappointed - the woman got away from him.

‘Ride on lady, I’m your monkey’

Not to be discouraged, Brandon and his dickhead boss later go out looking to get laid. His boss is boorish to an extreme and hopeless with women. He tries to be charming but he has the seduction powers of a tapeworm. Brandon, though, is more successful. Eventually, after sending his drunk boss home in a cab like he’s a good little boy, Brandon gets picked up by the same woman his boss tried to chat up and they fuck in a deserted corner somewhere. Suddenly the girl on the train seems a million miles away.

‘I woke up in the morning, I was sexualised, A new day was dawning, I was sexualised, Read a morning paper, it was sexualised’

In-between these casual encounters we see Brandon at home going about his day (which usually consists of him walking around naked, waving his dick around). He begins receiving a barrage of voicemails. They’re from his sister. He does his best to ignore them but eventually his sister turns up in his apartment.

It’s when Sissy reappears in his life that some cracks start showing. In one scene Brandon and his boss go and watch Sissy sing in some New York bar. They take their seats and Sissy begins singing a sad version of ‘New York, New York’. All the optimism is drained out of her rendition and instead it becomes something of a dirge. The song no longer signifies hope and determination. Now it reeks of despair and desperation. So much so that Brandon is reduced to tears. Perhaps he’s finally seeing how hollow his life is. This city has not made his dreams come true. It’s just made his nightmares more acute.

The ‘New York, New York’ scene is actually pretty hard to watch. Not because it’s poorly acted or anything. It’s just that the song is sung so slowly and the directing is so unflinching that it becomes a little uncomfortable. But it certainly works.

And it also answered one of the first questions that I had about the movie. Why is a British director making a film with British and Irish stars and setting it in New York? Surely London would have worked just as well? But the ‘New York, New York’ scene clarified things for me. New York is a city that is mythologised to a ridiculous extreme. Whether it’s Sinatra or ‘Empire State of Mind’ or Sex in the City, it’s constantly romanticised, much more so than London. Hell, New York is romanticised even when people are trying to make it look horrible - just look at all the detective shows that are set in NYC. So Shame tries to cut through some of that. Here’s this huge metropolis and here are all the opportunities that it contains, but does the grandeur of the place help connect us and bind us together? No, it isolates us and makes us even more vulnerable.

‘Touching you, touching me, touching you, god you’re touching me’

One of the most nauseating scenes in Shame is when Sissy and Brandon’s boss hook up. Brandon has to sit there in a taxi as the two of them make out. And then later he has to let them fuck in his bed. He’s powerless because he doesn’t want to lose his job and all he can do is go for a late night run through the city.

This run is actually a good example of McQueen’s strength as a director. He doesn’t make any attempt at anything flashy. In one shot he just follows Brandon running across town. But the length of the shot and McQueen’s fidelity to it ends up giving this simple moment an intensity it would be easy to lose. You’re right there in Brandon’s head - you can feel the rage. This is a two-handed power play that his sister and his boss are playing on him. His sister is punishing him for his lack of love and attention as a brother and his boss is putting him in his place - sure Brandon might be better with women but now he’s fucked his sister.

And just to further illustrate what a despicable person his boss is, there’s a scene where we see Brandon’s boss Skyping his wife and kids. McQueen cleverly denied us these details earlier in the film (that the boss was married with kids) which makes his fucking around even more egregious. The scene, like much of the film, feels very much like something out of Kubrick. In a scene in 2001, one of the astronauts is listening to a birthday message from his parents. He barely registers any emotion at all. And so it is with the boss. He talks to his kids and goes through the motions but the true him is off to the side. The true him is the guy that wants to fuck everything in sight. A husband, a father - these are just roles that he’s acquired to live a life that will more comfortably facilitate his sleazy existence.

‘I know I can, I know I can...It’s got nothing to do with anything I had to drink, It’s more to do with the way I think’

The only ray of hope for Brandon is a co-worker at his office. He asks the woman (Marianne) out and they go to a restaurant for dinner. At first it seems that everything is going terribly. The conversation seems more antagonistic than friendly but this actually works out for Brandon as there ends up being some sexual tension. Unusually for Brandon, he doesn’t make a move at the end of the night. He doesn’t go for a kiss and he doesn’t try and take his date back home. But seeing as he usually tries to immediately fuck everything in sight, perhaps this is progress?

After a fight with Sissy, Brandon throws away all of his pornographic material. The next day he kisses Marianne and they go back to a hotel room. Everything seems to be going well but Brandon can’t maintain an erection. Is this too intimate perhaps? Can he not perform if he actually sees his partner as a human being? And is it also a form of self-sabotage - he’s subconsciously trying to ruin any relationship that might go anywhere?

‘To need a woman you’ve got to know, How the strong get weak and the rich get poor’

When Brandon has the next bust up with Sissy, he tries to escape the pain in the only way that he knows how - by trying to fuck anything he can find.

At a bar, Brandon blatantly tries to pick up a girl in front of her boyfriend - he gets a beating for his troubles. He then tries to get into a nightclub but gets refused entry - he has a big cut on his face. Desperate for any kind of release, he heads into a nearby gay bar. Dark and seedy and with cum-stained walls, he receives a blow-job from a stranger. Surely this must be enough, you think. He must be done now. But no, Brandon then goes off to an apartment to have a threesome with some hookers.

The notable thing about this last encounter is that it seems like the first time that Brandon has some self-awareness. Towards the end it seems like he’s no longer enjoying it - that he realises how empty these tawdry encounters are. In the orgy all we see are various close ups of various body parts - it’s as if the people are just pieces of meat. Brandon’s face then shows a stunning kind of sadness - it seems like he no longer wants this but he’s incapable of stopping it.

‘Well you and I collapsed in love, And it looks like we might have made it, Yes it, looks like we might have made it to the end’

When Brandon gets back to his apartment, he finds that Sissy has slashed her wrists. She lives but Brandon is devastated.

The end of the film comes full circle. Brandon is once again on the subway and once again he sees the girl he flirted with earlier. This time, though, she’s obviously interested while he stares passively at her. As she stands up near him, we see that her wedding ring has gone - now she’s only wearing her engagement ring. The old Brandon wouldn’t need any further encouragement but this Brandon can only sit and stare.

It’s never made clear whether Brandon gets up to follow the girl as the screen cuts to black before we have an answer. But there are two different futures for him. He can either get up and follow the girl or he can just stay where he is. If he follows the girl, he’s going to continue further along this dead end of a life he’s set up for himself. But if he stays where he is, then maybe he has a chance to do something more. He doesn’t have to become a saint and he doesn’t have to find the perfect woman. He just needs to discover some self-worth and exercise some control. His current existence is a sad state of affairs where every impulse must be filled - there’s never an inappropriate time to engage in some sort of sexual behaviour. To continue like this, to discard any human relationships with any depth or complexity, is to court oblivion. Startled by his experience with his sister, he finally has a chance to wake up. It may hurt to open yourself up to other people but the wounds you receive by closing yourself off cut much deeper.