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Chicago International Film Fest
Shortbus (John Cameron Mitchell, US)
In the first ten minutes of John Cameron Mitchell’s much-anticipated follow up to Hedwig and the Angry Inch, viewers are voyeuristically thrown into three non-simulated sex scenes—a man attempting to fellate himself, a straight couple putting their Kama Sutra skills to work and a dominatrix mercilessly flogging a yuppie with a trust fund who really wants to know her views on procreation. Despite the eclectic audience, which ranged from nubile to nearly dead, only one person walked out of the theater during this audacious opening sequence.
The story revolves around a handful of disenchanted New Yorkers who meet at a hipster salon to showcase art and music, discuss the downfall of urban idealism and to participate in orgies. Sofia (Sook-Yin Lee) is a married sex therapist who’s never had an orgasm. James (Paul Dawson), a clinically depressed former streetwalker turned spa jacuzzi lifeguard, is trying to acclimate his boyfriend Jamie (PJ DeBoy) to a polyamorous relationship. Severin (Lindsay Beamish) is a dominatrix who can’t sustain a relationship outside the realm of nipple clamps and garter belts until she meets Sofia and the two begin quazi-platonic, mutual therapy sessions inside a sensory deprivation tank. Added to the punchbowl are pastiches of “sextras” which include Ceth (Jay Brannan), a pretty boy partier, Caleb (Peter Stickles), a mostly harmless techie stalker, and a few cameo performances from Justin Bond (Kiki and Herb), Bitch (formerly of Bitch and Animal), JD Samson (from Le Tigre) and Daniela Sea (The L Word).
Mitchell has a cameo role in one of the orgy scenes, where he is going down a woman for the first time. According to Sook-Yin Lee and Lindsay Beamish, who were at the screening, since Mitchell had asked his cast to push their boundaries in the film, he had to push his as well, which is why he engaged in on-screen cunnilingus. Unlike pornography, whose sole purpose is to arouse, the sex in Shortbus serves as an impetus for insight into the sullen lives of its characters, their inadequacies and eccentricities. Sometimes irreverent and sometimes parody, Mitchell uses sexuality as a lens in which to examine the complexities of human emotion, politics and artistic _expression. One of my favorite scenes is when Severin’s yuppie slave ejaculates onto a Jackson Pollock painting, humorously disavowing the snobbery of art and its mediums.
A swooping camera peers into the windows of an animated, cardboard cut-out version of New York, darting in and out of each character’s malaise-filled bubble while the city itself experiences a series of brown-outs. Corresponding to the circuitry of the characters’ various conundrums, electricity is eventually restored through a smorgasbord of climaxes, which all detonate around the same time. An unabashed, revelatory romp through the disaffected gaze of youthful carnality, Shortbus pushes the limitations of sexuality as art form and candidly explores the possibilities of connection in our frenzied, de-individualized world, with the added bonus of a man singing the National Anthem into another man's anus.
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