English GCSE Coursework: Film Review
Shortbus
Kicking off with the tag line “Voyeurism is Participation”, writer and director John Cameron Mitchell follows up his 2001 cult classic “Hedwig and the Angry Inch” with this 2006 Cannes Film Festival release, once again with sex, tragedy, and the human spirit as central theme. This time, though, it’s the Americans getting special attention; New Yorkers to be precise. This light-headed production is a medley of 3 separate stories, and of the club of fantastic reverie which brings them together, Shortbus. Mitchell continues his habit of plucking unknowns and TV actors and introduces Paul Dawson and PJ DeBoy as gay couple James and Jamie (whose greatest accomplishment is surely to fellate himself as the film begins). At the same time, we meet Sofia (Sook-Yin Lee of Hedwig and the Angry Inch and Sliders fame) – a sex-therapist who fakes her orgasms, and our last contestant, and it feels like a game-show as you’re watching, is Severin, (played by CSI and Gilmore Girls’ Lindsay Beamish) a dominatrix unable to bond and find true love. With the scene set for chaos, tragedy, comedy, and no-holds barred sexual gratification on the quest for self-discovery this is not a film to watch with your grandparents. Cleverly weaving computer-generated ejaculations as we fly over a 3d New York skyline, and incorporating the cranky and quirky theme tune “Winters Love” by Animal Collective, we can’t help but fall for witty one-liners such as “You've got to get on to get off” and ” Open Your Mind. And Everything Else” which delicately pepper a background of carnal gyration. Keep a keen eye and you’ll notice that when James and Jamie are talking about Ceth and about their relationship, the dancer in the back goes from topless in one shot, to with a top in the next.
