USA | 2006 | Directed by John Cameron Mitchell
Logline: Several gay and straight characters struggle for sexual inspiration and a deeper understanding of love and commitment within their respective relationships.
The title takes its inspiration – a little obscurely – from the shorter yellow American school bus that apparently follows the longer traditional one. On board the main bus were the “normal” kids, while segregated and trailing behind in the short bus were the outsiders; the emotionally-disturbed, dysfunctional kids. Methinks John Cameron Mitchell rode the shortbus. In the movie Shortbus is the name of the underground salon, infamous for its blend of art, music, politics, and carnality, where the main characters, immersed in their lurid subterfuge, all converge.
The whole look and feel of the film is very NYC; the Big Apple stretching as Grace Jones once crooned. From the brilliant animation sequences that inter-cut the stories – camera flying over a painterly model Manhattan, diving down through the trees of Central Park and zooming into the window of some lower eastside apartment block – to the biting, self-depreciating sense of humour, the nonchalant polysexual tone, and of course, the mischievous, no-holds-barred explicit sex.
Yes, the sex. Shortbus embraces sexuality with a bear hug, and it goes further than any other art-house adult film of recent years, including Michael Winterbottom’s hugely disappointing 9 Songs and Catherine Breillet’s self-indulgent rub-one-outs Romance and Anatomy of Hell. In between the soul-searching and body-issues the audience is privy to actual sex (as the censors like to call it these days); a variety of hardcore activities ranging from auto-fellatio (impressive), cunnilingus, masturbation, ejaculation, group sex (arguably the most erotic of all the sex scenes), and a gay threesome (which will most definitely sort the adventurous men from the prudish boys, if you get my drift).
The provocative left-field Tinseltown directors can dream away, but Hollywood will never make a film like this. Apparently Mitchell and his producers held a specialised casting process to find the right actors – not wannabe porn stars – who delivered surprisingly solid performances, injecting the film with intelligence, honesty and a genuinely emotional edge.
It’s the kind of transgressive, genre-bending “mainstream” filmmaking we need to see more of. Of course your average Joe will only see this experimental, boundary-pushing, dramatic comedy as nothing more than art-house pornography, but hey, art and sex have always tangoed, and relationships are built on honesty and uninhibited communication. While Shortbus meanders from time to time, its central themes of self-acceptance and open-mindedness permeate the movie.
Vividly colourful and frequently funny, the movie is an outrageous melting pot of underground styles ejaculating over the mainstreet. Think Federico Fellini meets John Cassavetes meets Nicole Holofcener meets Richard Linklater meets Robert Altman meets Jack Smith meets Woody Allen at a swingers club in downtown New York City, and you’ll get the acquired taste. Whether you spit or swallow is up to you.
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