Shortbus is one you want to catch

As the director of Shortbus, John Cameron Mitchell is like that dad who thinks the best way to teach his kid how to swim is to throw him in the water. The movie opens with a barrage of explicit sex shots, from a couple going at it like the puppets in Team America: World Police, to a dominatrix whipping a young man, to a guy performing fellatio on himself.
And, yes, the penises are erect, there is penetration and semen; dripping gobs of semen and some of it shot on the wall as a contribution to a piece of art. And Shortbus is art, not pure porn as some critics have suggested.
Certainly, these opening scenes and others that follow are as hard core as any XXX movie out there but, in true porn, the aim is to arouse and only that; there are no stories and no real actors. Shortbus has stories to tell and it has something to say.
Imagine that: a movie that has sex in it and isn’t afraid of it; that doesn’t us it as a tool of violence or as a sudden, contrived relief of tension between characters.
Shortbus features the huge Canadian talent Sook Yin Lee (host of CBC Radio’s Definitely Not The Opera) as a sex therapist named Sofia who, despite being sexually creative and energetic with her husband Rob (Raphael Barker), has not yet achieved orgasm in her life.
Two of Sofia’s clients are the gay couple Jamie (PJ DeBoy) and James (Paul Dawson), the former of whom is positive and upbeat, while the latter is lost and depressed. They’re in a funk that they try to break out of through infidelity, eventually taking in a naïve young man named Ceth (Jay Brannon) as a third partner.
Meanwhile, the dominatrix Severin (Lindsay Beamish) befriends Sofia and they form an awkward relationship. Toss in Caleb (Peter Stickles), a peeping tom and stalker who is obsessed with Jamie and James, and you’ve got an impressive league of extraordinarily fragile and confused misfits.
The characters all frequent a sex club called Shortbus (in school, the smaller buses were for the challenged and gifted), located in a surreal New York that is clearly still feeling the rawness of 9/11. The tragedy undoubtedly left a lot of the city’s residents numb and the Shortbus characters all seem to be turning to sex as a way of reminding themselves that they are alive, trying to connect with people in the most intense and tangible way they know.
Studies have shown that pregnancy numbers skyrocket in the wake of large disasters, whether they are natural, like earthquakes, or man-made, like 9/11, which saw a 20 per cent rise. The theory is that people feel small and vulnerable and their survival instinct kicks in; the need to perpetuate the race and get in touch with another human being in the most intimate way possible.
That is the essence of Shortbus and what allows it to be both sad and comedic. It is about misfits, people who felt disconnected before 9/11 and only feel more so now. Their attempts to feel and be needed are so desperate and naïve that they are often hilarious.
My favorite scene (spoiler alert!) is when there is a threesome with Jamie, James and Ceth, and Jamie sings “The Star-spangled Banner” into Ceth’s ass. Jamie asks if that’s the first time someone has sang the U.S. anthem in his ass, to which Ceth quickly responds, “No.”
Mitchell also wrote, directed and starred in the tremendously entertaining cult movie, Hedwig and the Angry Inch. He’s obviously not trying to win mainstream audiences with these first two movies; he’s just telling different stories and he’s telling them well. If only all artists were so bold.