Get on the bus

I can't recall when I first heard about John Cameron Mitchell's new film, Shortbus. I picked up on vague mutterings about it a year or two ago, but nothing really registered until earlier this year, when the finished film screened at Cannes. That's when the buzz - not to mention the vague sense of moral outrage among some pundits - about this new film from the writer and director of Hedwig and the Angry Inch really caught my attention.

Shortbus is the most sexually explicit drama to come out of the USA, and features real sex instead of carefully choreographed simulations. Having advertised for people prepared to have get their gear off - and get off - in front of the camera, Mitchell slowly assembled a cast, and with them, workshoped their characters.

Such characters include former child star Jamie (P J DeBoy) and his depressed boyfriend James (Paul Dawson), who are considering opening up their five year relationship to new partners; sex therapist Sofia (Sook-Yin Lee) who has never, ever had an orgasm; and Severin (Lindsay Beamish) a dominatrix unable to emotionally connect with the world. The threads of their lives gradually intertwine at the titular salon in which much of the action is set: an avant guarde island in the midst of post September 11 New York.

"If you have your photograph taken at Ground Zero," one of Severin's clients asks her, "do you smile?"

All of them are looking for love, for connection, and Mitchell gives it to them - and to us - only after an, at times, fraught journey through life's lowest moments.

The film's establishing shot conveys an instant sense of the physical, as the camera darts about the body of a statue, showing us its fingers and toes before pulling back to reveal that the object of our gaze is the Statue of Liberty as we've never seen her before. With this one scene, Mitchell establishes both the playful tone of the film, and tricks us. We expect now to view a film in which the physical - specifically the physical act of sex is front and centre - and it is, but it's also perfectly integrated into every other aspect of the story.

There's nothing arousing or voyeuristic about the fucking, sucking, rimming and wanking that decorates the screen in Shortbus; Mitchell uses sex to reveal the emotions behind the people who are getting it on so passionately, and in doing so crafts a tender, lyrical and often hilarious story.

Don't see Shortbus expecting to be aroused - do see it and expect to be moved. On a couple of other blogs today, when describing it, I've called Shortbus the most life-affirming film I've seen this year. That's the line I'm sticking to. Although not without flaws, this is a beautiful, rewarding and transporting film that will, for its 101 minutes, take you somewhere warm and wonderful - and best of all, you won't have to sleep in the wet patch afterwards.