SHORTBUS at CineKink NYC 2008

Anna Biller in Viva

CineKink NYC 2008 will take place from February 26–March 2. The scheduled shorts and features sound kinky enough, but I can only vouch for two that I've seen: John Cameron Mitchell's Shortbus and Anna Biller's Viva.

The former, a sexual dramatic-comedy about various New York City couples of myriad sexual orientations and dysfunctions, was screened at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival. The latter, a morality tale about a lonely housewife who discovers sexual freedom (and the costs of that freedom), was screened at the AFI FEST 2007.

Shortbus, though well worth a look, was a disappointment. The sex scenes, however explicit, seem phony. Alas, so does much of the drama. On the other hand, several comic moments are quite funny, especially one involving an egg-shaped vibrating beeper named after Nagisa Oshima's In the Realm of the Senses.

Viva was a campy surprise. Co-produced, directed, written, edited, production designed, costume designed, and just-about-everything-else by Anna Biller, who also stars in the title role, this great-looking dramatic sex comedy follows the emotional and (softcore) physical misadventures of a pretty and lonely housewife in the Los Angeles of the early 1970s.

No matter how small its budget was, Viva feels more authentic than most studio productions set during that era. In fact, the film looks and sounds exactly like the sexploitation flicks made in those days. Viva's chief flaws are its excessive 121-minute running time and a finale that feels more than a tad moralizing.

Photos: Courtesy of CineKink