Shortbus

Rating:	★★★★
Category:	Movies
Genre:	Comedy

"Jesse, the John: You're taking a picture of yourself at Ground Zero: do you smile?"

Voyeurism, Menage, Bondage, Lesbianism and Gay Sex, Orgies, Arts, Painting, Auto-fellation, Pre-orgasms all crammed in a city which everyone comes to be fucked, a city which everyone comes to be forgiven.

I learned about this film from a friend who was disgusted enough to throw the DVD away. Being such a curious film buff such as I am, I searched for the film and watched it today. Written and Directed by James Cameron Mitchell (Hedwig and the Angry Inch), the film is also known as "The Sex Film Project" and it does contain a lot of graphic sex.

Plot Summary (from imdb)

Shortbus (2006)

Numerous New York City-dwellers come to the exclusive club Shortbus to work out problems in their sexual relationships. Rob (Raphael Barker) and Sophia (Sook-Yin Lee) are a happily married couple, except for the fact that she has never experienced sexual climax. This irony follows her to work, because she is a couples counselor who frequently has to deal with the sexual issues other couples have. Two of her patients are Jamie (PJ DeBoy) and James (Paul Dawson), a gay couple who have been monogamous for five years and counting. James wants to bring other men in to the relationship, and his own history with depression may hint at an ulterior motive. Ceth (Pronounced like Seth, played by Jay Brannon) may be the perfect addition to their family, but Caleb, a voyeur from across the street, may have his own ideas about that. Sophia visits Severin, a dominatrix with secrets of her own to reveal.
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The explicit sex that was portrayed in the movie masked the underlying tones of pervading and smothering sadness that befalls most of the characters. A shattering and painful melancholia that can be claustrophobically oppressive- from the pregnant moments of silences caught in the eyes of Sophia, Jamie and James, through the lenses of Caleb, and the cameras of Severin, to the haunting musical scoring - this film is a definite gem if one starts looking underneath all that massive onscreen sexuality. It is a love story of people with themselves trying to find themselves a place in the city that constantly eats and chews up its own citizens - a reality that seemed so jarring to the uninitiated.

If people should accuse it being a porn film - then it was the first porn film that ever made me cry.

Thank you James Cameron Mitchell.