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1 Feb 2007

pansexual dramedy shortbus opens in hong kong feb 2

Opening in Hong Kong on Friday, John Cameron Mitchell's Shortbus has attracted controversy worldwide for its characters seeking sexual healing and featuring "real" sex scenes. Fridae speaks to gay actor Paul Dawson who met his boyfriend and co-actor PJ DeBoy during the making of the film.

Shortbus (2006)
Directed by John Cameron Mitchell
Cast: Sook-Yin Lee, Paul Dawson, Lindsay Beamish, PJ DeBoy, Raphael Barker, Jay Brannan, Justin Bond

Shortbus tells the story of an eponymous weekly sexual underground salon in New York City that is part philosophy caf and part orgy. It is a feast of music, conversation, artistic exchange and erotic satisfaction (with lots of drugs and alcohol). The sheer abundance of sex could initially be startling but hardly daunting to all you regular porn watchers. The film is hilarious, including a scene of a man giving himself a blow job (autofellatio) and one in which a guy sings the American national anthem into the naked butt of another.

An urban drama-comedy that follows a varied group of seven people as they navigate between the paths of sex and love in modern day New York City. Top pic: Paul Dawson; above (last pic): Dawson and his onscreen and real life boyfriend PJ DeBoy (left).
There is lots and lots (and lots) of sex, not the kind that makes your nose bleeds but the kind that makes you want to read Walt Whitman.

Shortbus refers to the American yellow school bus. Regular kids take the long bus while the "special," troubled ones ride in the shorter one because there are less of them. Thus making Shortbus a refuge for misfits, and it relates to all of us with the perpetual search for pleasure and intimacy, both emotionally and physically.

If you've ever been called queer, fag, dyke, geek or just weird, you would feel right at home. Every single eccentricity and orientation is celebrated. An overweight trannie walks around in inch-thick glasses, a wrinkly old man kisses a teenage male model, and a sex therapist who has never had an orgasm is determined to get one in here.

"Shortbus (and ideally New York) provides a safe place for a brilliant, if difficult, collection of people whose real homes can be quite judgmental of them," Paul Dawson, who played one of the main characters in the ensemble, put it this way.

The polyphonic storyline centers on the relationship between the gay couple James (Paul Dawson) and Jamie (PJ DeBoy). The pair became real lovers during the making of the film.

James, a clinically depressed male escort, spends a year to make an autobiographical film for Jamie as a suicide note. Dawson said even as James is abandoning his own life, he is compelled to document his existence.

"It's a desperate effort on his part to identify the beauty in it which he knows is there but is unable to see or feel. I have certainly identified this impulse in myself and in many gay artists and writers. I believe this is a struggle common in people who are oppressed and have been led to believe that who they are is wrong or bad or inferior. That's why I wanted to portray it."

In one of the most touching scenes, a dominatrix and artist named Severin takes a polaroid of James and writes a price tag on his image, upon which he breaks into tears.

"When he sees the price etched in the Polaroid, he is reminded of how little he thinks of himself," said Dawson. Sex work became a part of Shortbus because it was so common. "John [John Cameron Mitchell of Hedwig and the Angry Inch fame, the director] would always say, 'It's become the new temp job.'"

Justin Bond, the fabulous androgynous proprietor who represents the Shortbus club, expresses a charming nonchalance when he puts it into perspective. He looks at the room full of love-making nudes and says: "It's like the sixties. Only with less hope."

It is sexual liberation in different contexts. In the 1960s, the hippie movement in America was partly a reaction to the Vietnam War. Shortbus is the answer to the Iraq War. Then again, it could simply be a critique of sexuality that coincided with a war.

"It's interesting to me that we started making Shortbus in the Spring of 2003, at the same time America was going to war in Iraq," said Dawson. "That timing alone might make the film an act of protest. I can't speak about the 60s. But nowadays just to recognise the underdogs in our society, those people who are disenfranchised of equal rights, is considered political."

Oh no, Iraq, let's not go there. Let's just make out.

Shortbus is an official selection of the Canne Film Festival and the Toronto Film Festival 2006. It is opening in Hong Kong on Friday Feb 2 at the Hong Kong Arts Centre.

Hong Kong Arts Centre Agnes b. CINEMA!
Schedule: 8pm/ Feb 2 - 4, 8 - 10; 4pm/ Feb 3; 9pm/ Feb 5 - 6, Feb 13
Tickets: HK$50 (except 02/02 fundraising Opening Gala, HKD$90)
Details: www.hkac.org.hk

读者回应

1. 2007-02-01 21:16  
i saw it 3 times in 1 week in new york.
2. 2007-02-02 00:31  
Daniela Sea is acting in this show isn't she?
3. 2007-02-02 01:55  
in Indonesia already released.....Nice movie....
4. 2007-02-02 02:36  
i got a copy for my birthday... ;p
回应#5於被作者删除。
6. 2007-02-02 02:42  
would it ever come to uk?
7. 2007-02-02 05:03  
Such a controversial movie and it is shown in mulim controversial indonesia. When is Singapore ever gonna realised what we are missing? the liberty of free media.
8. 2007-02-02 06:48  
'sigh' I was gonna audition for this...
9. 2007-02-03 14:59  
I saw the film in Sydney and found it to be a very deep, thought-provoking film. The sex scenes are never gratuitous and are integral to the film. Funny thing is I felt the same about this film as I did after watching Little Miss Sunshine!
10. 2007-02-03 18:41  
Watched it.... insanely funny at times, but also thought provoking. Funny though, there's a happy ending for everyone...

I like the plot. It's an interesting take on the new sexual liberation... my conclusion: We're a very complicated species... And yes. It's gonna be ban in Malaysia.. ;)

Thank Goodness for pirated copies!
11. 2007-02-04 08:04  
i agree with spikeshamz. singapore needs to loosen up a bit so that such artistic movies can be shown here. though i understand that it should not be too liberal. set reasonable boundaries. i admit that i wanna watch men having sex and yada yada yada...still from the comments posted, i think it's not porn. man, we have R21 movies here but not this?! maybe i spoke too soon. let's hope the movie will come to singapore one day. hey it, "is an official selection of the Canne Film Festival and the Toronto Film Festival 2006" right? means it's good and artistic and brilliant. i wish more people could be more open to such mature-themed movies cause it does need maturity to understand the film and not dismiss it as porn or crappy, dont you agree? if they are, good. if they are not, then well wake up and move on with time!

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