SHORTBUS

by Kevin Koehler

Someday, possible soon, possibly not, an ambitious director will make a provocative, creatively-satisfying motion picture with unsimulated fucking. There have been a number of attempts lately, mostly awful, tending either to induce sleep or nausea. Michael Winterbottom’s soporific 9 Songs springs to mind, a well-intentioned but wholly boring affair (whose soundtrack exhibits symptoms of Cameron Crowe Disease); cynical French-language abortion Baise-Moi is another notable failure. Only a couple of “mainstream” money shot pictures are halfway watchable: Cannes whipping boy The Brown Bunny (even if the single scene of fellatio might be the worst thing about it) and Intimacy, a film with two compelling performances mired in narrative quicksand. It seems that The Brown Bunny and Intimacy succeed, relatively speaking, where the others fail because these two are films with identifiable plots and characters that also happen to show their actors fucking, either out of fidelity to realism or to communicate vague themes; Baise-Moi and 9 Songs start with the fucking and work backwards - much like your traditional pornographic film, really, but without implied permission to masturbate.

Though not overtly onanistic, one imagines John Cameron Mitchell would be rather flattered if you knocked one out to Shortbus, the latest high-profile foray into actor/actress orifice penetration. The tagline of the picture is “Voyeurism is Participation”; watching films like Shortbus is a sexual act in and of itself, we are told, so have at it. If you squint, you can actually see the director himself in flagrante during the picture’s centerpiece orgy sequences. Either it’s thesbian solidarity or John Cameron Mitchell actually likes it; probably the latter cloaked in the former, unless Mitchell was as honest with his cast as he wants the audience to be itself.

Shortbus tells three overlapping stories. Sonia (Lee) is a sex therapist who prefers to be called a couples counselor. She feels like a hypocrite and a failure, pretending to be an expert on a subject which she herself has not mastered. Despite performing the act in a comprehensive variety of positions/settings, Sonia has never had an orgasm, even with sensitive husband Rob (Barker).

Gay couple Jamie (DeBoy) and James (Dawson) are Sonia’s patients who find themselves in a sexual quandary as well. James, possessor of a unique corporal flexibility that allows him to self-fellate (which he documents on camera; everyone seems to be recording themselves in the film as a general indictment of audience piousness, though you have to wonder who Mitchell thinks is watching this movie), has suggested that he and Jamie open their relationship up to other partners and group sexual encounters. When Sonia is solicited for her opinion, she experiences an awkward breakdown of sorts and confesses her own dark secret. They invite her to expand her boundaries at the titular salon, Shortbus, where liberated Manhattanites get all manner of freak on.

It is here where Sonia crosses paths with a cantankerous dominatrix (aren’t they all?) named Severin (Beamish) who lives in a storage unit. After a contentious meeting, they regularly rendezvous in an isolation tank and help each other through their respective intimacy/relationship/daddy issues. Sonia describes how her Chinese-Canadian father may have "watched" her inappropriately as a child. “This is the best conversation I’ve had all year,” replies Severin before she encourages her new friend to masturbate in front of her. Unfortunately, still no breakthrough and the orgasm drought continues.

John Cameron Mitchell wanted to make a film with real intercourse in it; the specifics came later, through auditioning actors and workshopping/improvising a storyline. That was his first mistake. Though the film is eminently quotable, even quite witty at times (sample dialogue: “You’re taking a picture of yourself at Ground Zero. Do you smile?”), comic set-pieces rarely come off. An extended sequence involving an envaginated sex toy is essentially an X-rated version of a tiresome old joke that wasn’t that funny to begin with. Likewise, the recitation of the Star Spangled Banner during a particularly graphic sex act inspires neither laughter or meaning; it’s basically just crude, no more thoughtful than a fart joke with political pretension. Characters are far too busy staring at their own navels (or what lies a few inches below) to solicit any serious empathy. As a practical matter, the pool of actors was certainly limited by their willingness to copulate on camera; it shows, with the novice Lee being perhaps the most unfortunately cast of all leads. To be fair, her character is significantly underdeveloped in comparison to the others, despite being the narrative backbone of the picture.

I have to question the underlying philosophy of the film as well. Admittedly, sex is so closely tied into identity that it can define our identity; our sexual kinks are indelibly connected to who we are as people, even if no one knows about them except us. “Are you a top or a bottom,” asks one of Severin’s clients. “In real life.” “This is real life,” she says. Severin is playing a role, but the role is also playing her. Other characters mirror her journey, engaged in a reclamation of the sex act from corruptive influences (whether it be a partner, society, or the past). However, what the film does not take into account is the malleability of sexual inclination; how can something so culturally impressionable as our sexual desires be a part of the self, if indeed there is a true self at all? It begs the question if anything sexual can truly be empowering, especially for those as sexual obsessed as the characters in Shortbus, marathon runners in an arms race of the flesh for which there is no finish line. Everyone is talking about, having, or watching sex; it’s more self-centered than stimulating, frankly, and you have to wonder whether they could solve their problems simply by finding another hobby.

Interesting footnote: Actress-musician Sook-Yin Lee hosts a radio program for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation called Definitely Not the Opera. She was almost fired over her role in Shortbus but the CBC ultimately allowed her to stay on after a number of celebrities complained, most notably Francis Ford Coppola, Michael Stipe, and Julianne Moore.

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