Knobs & Knockers (Shortbus (DVD))

Member Name: spencer_hawken

Product:	Shortbus (DVD)
Date:	08/12/07 (97 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Disection of real human issues

Disadvantages: Not a sausage

Just where to start with a movie like Shortbus, in the words of Maria "To start at the very beginning, is a very good place to start" but with Shortbus it's difficult to tell where to begin. Probably the best place to start is with a warning, 9 Songs and Intimacy came out upon world markets with warnings about being the most sexually explicit movies ever released, Shortbus was released without anyone even batting an eyelid and from a sexual point of view it's the most graphic "legal" movie I have ever seen; as the movie progresses you will see a variety of sexual orientations climax in a variety of ways.

Shortbus's director John Cameron Mitchell is no stranger in trying to shock his audience, six years ago his movie Hedwig And The Angry Inch had as many critics as it had fans, quite literally making its critics throw up over elements of subject matter. While Shortbus won't make you want to throw up it does at times make you ask whether certain scenes were actually necessary.

As the movie begins it focuses on three people, but as the plot develops you get a wider spectrum of characters all of whose stories are important. The opening scenes will strike you as quite harsh; James alone in his apartment is seen urinating in his bath water, before getting out of his bath contorting his body into an unusual angle and masturbating over his own face having tried unsuccessfully to suck his own penis, all the time he has been filming these images with his video camera.

Sofia and her boyfriend are having a quite vigorous sex session, you witness full penetration in a number of positions the aim of which as you later discover is to try and allow Sofia to gain her first orgasm.

Severin is a dominatrix by trade; she is first seen abusing and beating her rich and probably only client. Severin's scenes throughout the movie are by far the less intimate. With the exception of Severin all the sexual acts you see in the movie are pretty much guaranteed genuine.

As the movie progresses the understanding of Shortbus becomes apparent, it's a club for people to enjoy their mutual sexual pleasures, or to hunt down and achieve their sexual needs; it's here that all the relationships interlock and then fragment creating a bigger picture. Sofia is introduced to Shortbus by its owner, and like the viewer is shocked by what she is seeing, full on straight and gay sex, masturbation, bondage, and a scattering of other sexual fetishes. In one room she witnesses a massive orgy involving over 100 people; while in another a group of people are watching what appears to be explicit pornography on a cinema screen but transpires to in fact be a baby's armpit.

What strikes me about Shortbus is the familiarity of the cast, everyone looks somehow familiar but a search of their work history on IMDB (Internet Movie Database) actually shows you that they have done very little. The cast all have well rounded performances, none seem amateurish or in any way wooden, each performance is a pleasure to watch. And as the end credits hit you, you finally realise that through all of this the actors were improvising the whole time, fuller investigation shows that despite a very thin plotline the rest of the performances were delivered and scripted by the actors themselves. This throws the movie into a different light, and in my view makes it possibly one of the most amazing movies of its kind I have ever seen.

Shortbus is a very artistic piece set in New York it never actually shows you the city itself, what it does is transforms from real life action to a sort of clay-mation effect each time the movie leaves the confines of the peoples apartments or Shortbus the buildings turn to clay. Even the showing of the site where the Twin Towers once stood, known as Ground Zero initially appears as a clay model. As day turns to night this massive clay cities lights all come on one by one. The movie shows a series of power flickers addressed as "brown outs" these are nicely reflected in the clay models. I should add we are not talking a few clay buildings here; we are talking an entire city complete with all its landmarks made entirely from clay.
Shortbus focuses in graphic details the things that lots of people in life experience but don't have the courage to address; and we are not just talking sex here, we are talking about other levels of intimacy such as low self esteem, or deep family secrets; from this point of view the movie is a ground breaking one, never have so many taboo subjects been addressed so carefully in a motion picture.

Shortbus will draw people in especially the brown raincoat quarter, or people wanting to watch the movie in search of cheap masturbatory kicks, but both elements may be disappointed because sex is delivered like an instrumental tool, not necessarily something of satisfaction. On the same angle the movie will repel potential audiences because of its graphic depiction of sex, and often close up images of sexual organs. But believe me this is something that needs to be seen through; black and white, gay and straight, ugly and sexy this movie give no clear persuasion as to what it believes is right and what is wrong; everyone is the same, we are all equal. From this perspective as well as being incredibly harsh the movie is also very innocent; it's a pleasure to watch. After you have got past the initial opening shocks, and progressed through the moving stories, to possibly the most amazing musical finale ever shown on screen with a highly memorable musical score and song, you realise that what you have seen is something unlike anything you have ever seen before.



Cast


Sook-Yin Lee ...... Sofia
Paul Dawson ...... James
Lindsay Beamish ...... Severin
PJ DeBoy ...... Jamie
Raphael Barker ...... Rob
Peter Stickles ...... Caleb, the Stalker
Jay Brannan ...... Ceth
Alan Mandell ...... Tobias, the Mayor
Adam Hardman ...... Jesse, the John
Ray Rivas ...... Shabbos Goy
Bitch ...... Bitch/Shortbus House Band
Shanti Carson ...... Leah, the Beautiful Couple
Justin Hagan ...... Brad
Jan Hilmer ...... Nick, the Beautiful Couple
Stephen Kent Jusick ...... Creamy



Shortbus is available on DVD for £5.99 from Play.com and I really recommend getting/seeing this if you have the tolerance for a bit of sexual activity. The DVD does have a trailer and a making of documentary, however I cannot comment on these as I received my promotional DVD at the start of the year before a DVD release was even scheduled, at that time no features were included. What I will say is that so inspired by the movie I am, I'm half tempted to buy the DVD just to see the special features, something I very seldom do having received a preview disc.


Spencer Hawken 12/07

Summary: Fantastic up close and personal view of sex