Pussy

King Missile's Detachable Penis, released in 1992, was one of those songs which, once heard, could never be forgotten. But what if typical female genitals could detach themselves from their owners? What kind of trouble - or fun - could that lead to?

Renata Gasiorowska's line-drawing animated short opens with a woman who has decided to spend a relaxing evening at home pleasuring herself. At first, nothing will quite go right. Trying to do it in the bath results in her tumbling backwards and submerging her head. When she's in the living room, someone rings the doorbell. Gradually she removes all potential sources of interruption, but by the time she is finally able to sit back and start touching herself, her pussy has become so restless that it separates itself from her body entirely and goes running excitedly around the house.

Trying to catch it is just the first challenge. It likes attention but doesn't want to behave for long. It's animated form, the bulb of the clitoris turned into a round smiley head and pubic hair giving it a furry body, is ridiculously cute, and the woman's interaction with it mingles notions of the erotic and the simply adoring. When it gets away from her again and begins sliding playfully across various household objects - some of them more hazardous than it may have anticipated - we see the woman crumple, roll around, sometimes in distress, sometimes overwhelmed by pleasure, helpless under the influence of this mischievous little creature.

Sometimes intensely erotic, sometimes side-splittingly funny, Gasiorowska's film is beautifully observed. It's full of little incidents and accidents that all owners of such creatures will relate to, even if they have generally managed to keep theirs where they're supposed to be. With the subject of female masturbation usually either ignored or presented purely as titillation, Pussy opens up a conversation that has been largely absent from cinema, and it does it with style, energy and wit. It's a little charmer of a film and a joy to watch.