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 Shortbus review
  
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All states of sex and sex in all its states: such is the proposal of Shortbus, a hedonistic tragi-comedy. Director John Cameron Mitchell sets up a sensitive and unbridled character study of a group of young New Yorkers who wonders about their sexuality following 9/11, in a country choking with puritanism. Sofia, a sexologist, has never known an orgasm after years of marriage. She meets a dominatrix who proposes to help her in her sensorial search. James and Jamie, a homosexual couple, want to open up their relationship sexually to include other people. Sensuality at half-mast based on generalized depression A club, the "Shortbus", crystallizes this sexuality in crisis. A true libertarian enclave, this unusual brings together all of the characters who gradually tame their neuroses. Here, one can participate in an orgy, sing, discuss art and feelings. Managed by Justin Bond, a figure of the English underground scene who plays himself, this decadent backdrop constitutes the pivotal point of a story lapsed into sentimentality. That's the tour de force of this grand neo-romantic film. Crude, but never vulgar. Rather, it constitutes a rare look into an emotionally lost generation whose bodies have become a vehicle of emotions and a problematic relationship with the world. Not simulated, the sex is displayed so naturally that it can't be assimilated to pornography. While clearly a stake for these modern heroes, pleasure however doesn't affect the audience, which is placed in the position of an empathetic observer (that's the difference with pornography). Emotion is born from what is seen, through the first frustrated then triumphant outburst of the senses: the birth of love, neither more, nor less. The bankruptcy of desire finds its very beautiful metaphor in a general power failure in New York. Sex, like electricity: it's the source of energy for a libertarian film which runs at top speed from beginning to end. Cameron Mitchell, who had already distinguished himself with Hedwig and the Angry Inch, notes "to what point the phobia of the sex and in fact, the morbid fear of all that surrounds it, in American culture leads directly to sadness, useless conflicts and violence". His film happily blasts the barriers assigned by a prude society, fruit of the Bush years in power. To reach an approach that so fiercely rids the actors of any complexes about the body, the director worked upstream, within the framework of improvisational workshops. A fruitful work, even the complicity manifested by the actors onscreen is part of the success of this subversive film. Simple: it's never been seen in contemporary American cinema! Shortbus imposes itself as an anti-establishment vehicle, rehabilitating pleasure, again and always. Translated into English by Anji Milanovic 
 Erotic Films
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