John Cameron Mitchell
Shortbus

'Shortbus' (2006) by director J.C. Mitchell, skillfully launched with an enviable buzz on the web and through a very provocative, absolutely forbidden website, is a sort of soft-porn film ennobled by the almost “socio/political” intentions of the plot a bit Altman-esque, which talks about gay couples in crisis, straight couples in crisis, clandestine feminist groups in crisis constantly fighting the chauvinist male, women in crisis who do not experience orgasms, young gay men in crisis who combine yoga and blowjobs and so on.

In short, a film about fundamentally lonely people desperately searching for any substitute of pleasure, however fleeting and intense, in a toy-New York (post-September 11) fake and fragile that doesn't know how to listen to the voice of its people (the scenes of New York recreated in Plasticine are gorgeous).
People who only have a shared meeting point, this venue called “Shortbus” (like the buses that take children to school) which is a sort of disreputable dive, frequented by queens, drag queens, fetishists, S&M, lesbians, and all kinds of human and sub-human fauna.
A kind of Warholian Factory where art, sex, readings, politics, and disengagement reign everywhere without any rule, amidst scenes that may cause a sense of strange disturbance (especially in the beginning) and orgiastic scenes between men that turn ridiculous (the scene of the American Anthem sung between the buttocks while another pretends to sing holding the dick like a microphone is hilarious to the max!).

Here at Shortbus, characters finally discover a substitute for love that may last only the time of a quickie or a hug between a young and an old patron of the club (a scene full of poignant poetry) but which ultimately is a way like any other to feel accepted by the world.
Here are the good ones, there, the bad ones (to put it simply).

The young director offers us a film stimulating in some ways and with content that is not at all easy, where sex is the last taboo (there's quite a bit of sex here but, I repeat, after the first 10 minutes, it almost becomes a secondary appendage to the story). A film at times obscene but the author manages to unravel always on the thread of irony between comedy, sarcasm, biting remarks, and moments of pure poetry scattered here and there.

But the film is not all sunshine and rainbows and it has some unforgivable flaws:
1. an exaggerated desire to preach to the viewer to “cheer” for this fundamentally deviant and unhealthy world (no matter what they say).
2. Dwelling on trivial sexual elements not strictly necessary to the story in a self-indulgence at times irritating.
3. Crafting simple caricatures of certain situations pushed to excess (the anorgasmic woman faking it with her husband... stuff for Settimana Enigmistica or Proto-Vanzina).
4. The desire to “justify every choice “as long as there is Love”: men, women, trans, lesbians, and so on, in a childish attempt to pass off as normal what, in my opinion (of a 90% straight male), is not normal.
5. Notable script holes with redundant and boring stretches.

But applause must be given to the director for the courage to address these themes without falling into excessive self-indulgence, enough to have the film selected at the 2006 Cannes Festival and to find even minimal distribution in Italy.

As a little film itself, I even enjoyed it (the final scene, a cute citation of Fellini's “8½” finale, was nice), but I can't imagine a society of tomorrow built with these features, where deviations become the norm, excesses, the standard, and where feeling like a “normal” couple is almost experienced as a sense of guilt. To the detriment of the children who, in my opinion, would be the first to suffer in this Generalized Chaos from Wild & Indiscriminate Copulation.
As long as it's all fun and games, it's fine (I’m the first, after all... go figure!). But when it comes to giving public praise or becoming a standard-bearer for every form of excess “in the name of some supposed love or feeling” here I stop and take the necessary distance.

The desire for love or affection should not justify or override everything and everyone.

(And here a discussion on the DICO would start which, formulated as they are now, do not completely find me in agreement. But that is the review of another film that who knows if I will ever see...)