Review of Shortbus (2006) by Ivy K — 20 Nov 2009

"Shortbus" is a unique but only moderately interesting film that explores 21st-century urban sexuality. It chronicles the joys and struggles of a handful of Brooklynites as they seek romantic and sexual fulfillment. One of the techniques the characters use is to attend gatherings that are essentially orgies. What's unusual is that writer/director John Cameron Mitchell (the creative mind behind 'Hedwig and the Angry Inch') has the actors actually take part in the orgies, complete with penetration.

But "Shortbus" is not a form of pornography. There are no close-ups of penetration or anything like that. Mitchell is most interested in exploring what goes on in someone's head during sex. I suppose he wanted the actors to have real sex in order to push them and the audience more deeply into the lived experience of eroticism. As an example, one male character has never been penetrated by another man. When it does finally happen, Mitchell has the actor really get penetrated. But the camera does not spend much time on his loins; it lingers on his face to capture the emotion he is experiencing. What we see on his face is not sexual arousal but personal transformation.

Unfortunately, this transformation is not that deep or complex. Ultimately the film is superficial, and this is its downfall. There's an air of sexual liberation that is quite nice, but it's nothing we haven't seen before. "Shortbus" experiments with form, but its content is rather hackneyed and thin.