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It is so rare these days for movies to honestly show or talk about sex. Between vampires saving themselves for marriage and slow-motion, artful, sweet and tender love making, you never get a real understanding about what gets people hot and bothered, or what they do about when they are in such a state. That's why my last two trips to the movie theater have been such a pleasant surprise. There are two movies in theaters, both about people with unusual sex drives and how they deal with them, both that manage to be sexy and honest and heartbreakingly beautiful. Oh, and both of them also star my new mancrush (sorry Ryan Gosling), Michael Fassbender. The first film was A Dangerous Method, David Cronenberg's historical drama about psychologist Carl Jung and a BDSM relationship he gets involved in with one of his patients. The second was the now infamous Shame, an NC-17 drama, co-written and directed by Steve McQueen, about a sex addict living in New York City.

But although both films feature fairly graphic sex, and are about both what drives the characters to such lustful actions and the repercussions of their decisions, they are extremely different. In addition, it is extremely difficult to attempt to determine which is the “better” film. Both are directed by brilliant craftsmen who are totally in control of every shot in every scene, but use that control to very different effects. Any determination of which film is superior to the other would be completely subjective, both because art is inherently subjective and because both films do what they do equally well. To compare them is only to highlight what each film does extraordinarily well, so I suppose that is what I'll do.

The Story:

Anybody who has seen David Cronenberg's brutal drama A History of Violence should know that Cronenberg is a kinky guy. My favorite movie sex scene of all time is the scene in which Viggo Mortenson and Maria Bello, playing a couple whose marriage is being torn apart by Mortenson's lies and his dark past, have a fight that turns violent and then evolves into an explosion of passion on a staircase that could only be described as “fucking.” While there is a lot of love between the two, and the actors pull off the complex emotional journey of the scene perfectly, they are not making love. They are fucking.

But the characters never discuss these urges, what turns their hate and anger into lust and arousal. And indeed, most people who are aroused by either giving or receiving pain, humiliating or being humiliated, are too embarrassed to discuss, much less analyze, what drives this arousal. In A Dangerous Method the characters endlessly discuss and analyze both the sexual urges of their patients and themselves, trying to understand where these desires come from. In Shame, the protagonist is unable to be open with anybody, even himself, about what he is going through. He avoids confrontation whenever possible, giving in to his urges, even when they make him hate himself, because it is easier than trying to control them.

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