Shortbus - Preview
Preview by Jack Foley
CANNES just wouldn’t be Cannes without the odd film about sex.
Last year, of course, there was Nine Songs to cause uproar. One of this year’s offerings was less controversial and critically very acclaimed.
Shortbus follows various New York City characters as they navigate the comic/tragic intersections between sex and love in and around a modern-day polysexual underground salon called Shortbus.
Sofia is a sex therapist who has never had an orgasm. She’s been faking for years with her husband Rob. But then she meets Severin, a female dominatrix who tries to help her.
Sofia’s clients include James and Jamie, who are starting to open up their relationship sexually. James suggests a three-way relationship with Ceth; Jamie is reluctant.
James seems to have a hidden agenda. His plans are witnessed by a stalker named Caleb.
All the characters converge on Shortbus, a mad nexus of art, music, politics and sex.
According to the Cannes website: “The film suggests new strategies for reconciling the unique pressures of post-9/11, Bush-exhausted New York City life with questions of the mind, pleasures of the flesh and imperatives of the heart.”
The entire film crew from Shortbus was on hand to present their out-of-competition film at the Cannes press conference, including director John Cameron Mitchell and actors Lindsay Beamish, Raphael Barker, Sook-Yin Lee, Justin Bond, Jay Branna, PJ DeBoy, Paul Dawson, Peter Stickles.
Commenting on the abundance of sex that takes place on-screen, Mitchell told journalists: “I was inspired by a lot of European directors who have certainly been using sex lately as a metaphoric language.
“In the States, there’s more of a puritanical environment . I was brought up kind of Catholic and conservative. We are certainly being controlled by a puritanical government in the States, a theocracy so to speak that a lot of people in the States don’t agree with.
“And there is a certain provocation we had in mind with this film, but more important than that, we wanted to use sex for a metaphor for things that were perhaps more universal: themes of connection and love and fear.
“We just thought the language of sex could be used the same way that the language of music is used in a musical. We weren’t planning on exploring the erotic side of sex, that’s certainly already been done to death, and we wanted to look at other aspects of sex in our film.
“Most people have said that by the end of the film, the sex was the last thing they think about, which is in a way our goal too, to remind people that it is just another brush stroke in the painting of life.”
Total Film was among those to hail it as one of the highlights of this year’s festival.
Referring to it as ‘a wonderfully indie drama’, they were moved to declare it as ‘the most enjoyable film of the fest’.
Looks like one to keep an eye on as it makes its way into UK cinemas later this year.