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Postcards from London
A stylish, sensuous film about a young man’s journey into an unusual form of escort work.
Director: Steve McLean
Overview
Set in a vibrant, neon-lit, imaginary vision of Soho, this morality tale manages to be both a beautifully shot homage in the spirit of Derek Jarman and a celebration of the homo-erotic in Baroque art. When teenage beauty and Essex boy Jim (Harris Dickinson, the compelling lead in Beach Rats) arrives from provincial boredom to seek his fortune, the promised cultural excitements of Soho prove hard to find. On his first night, he is robbed by a stranger, ends up homeless and is forced to sleep in a cardboard box. But with a word from a kindly security guard, he discovers a group of art-loving rent-boys who take him under their wing.
The group exist to provide very special services for art connoisseurs – intelligent, post-coital conversation based on an intense knowledge and appreciation of the great masters. With his love of art history, Jim is a willing pupil, but his passion is impeded when he discovers he suffers from Stendhal’s Syndrome, a rare disease that finds him fainting in the presence of great art. Frequently dazzling and often audacious, this is a film for anyone who has ever fallen in love with one of the beautiful subjects in an old master painting. With a script that keeps you in thrall to Jim’s journey, Postcards from London illuminates the potency of high art in queer history. Writer-director Steve McLean has created a powerful film whose unlikely blend of voyeuristic pleasures and sharp-talking, Adonis-like art-fanciers has a hypnotic quality that is as transporting as it is brilliant.
strong language, sex references
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