“London’s observations are delivered with thoughtful and relaxed precision.”

“There’s something about daylight that has always bothered me. Sometimes it feels like I already know everything that will happen to me, because it’s always under the light that the same curious looks cross my path. The day has always been denied to me, but night has made itself mine. Night is my ally, my favourite fetish.”

London, a young, crippled, and presumably queer man living in Brazil, escapes the cruel realities of how he is perceived in the daylight, performing as a sex worker in a fetish house by night, offering a very specific experience to his clients that they would be unlikely to find elsewhere or at the hands of another. The typical structure of his sessions appears to facilitate a dominant bondage experience, where he binds his clients in tightly wrapped plastic, as he removes his leg brace and caresses their bodies with it. By day, he is trying as best he can to live a free and independent life, alone in a bachelor pad apartment; but he is frequently visited by his mother, who insists that he endure medical examinations and MRIs to attempt to determine the pathology of his condition. London is not as urgently concerned with finding these answers as she is, and it becomes clear that both of his lives, by day and by night, are full of chronic frustrations where he feels reduced to being solely defined by his (unclear, still to be determined) medical condition.

As the film progresses, London is shown in scenarios that more accurately portray who he is and who he wants to be as a person. London has a younger sister, and beyond the natural affection and love between siblings, one of the reasons why he prioritizes spending time with her is because he finds the kind of acceptance and love that he needs. She looks up to him with the adoration of a little sister for her older brother, one of the few people in his life not thinking of him as a queer, disabled person. He also feels understood by his coworker Luiza, whose condition is not explicitly defined, though wide shots show her proportionally short torso and a pronounced spinal curvature. Luiza, though in many ways conventionally beautiful (as is London, himself), experiences difficulties in dating and feeling genuine intimacy. Instead of their relationship being defined by commiseration over not being understood, accepted or loved as they want to be, it is clear that they find some hope and comfort in realizing they aren’t totally alone in this experience.

London’s strongest insights emerge through its understated intersectional observations. London’s sexual orientation is never explicit, but he is typically seen in service of male clients, though his most significant work is with an older female client. Nonetheless, there is a sense of queerness operating within him, regardless of whatever his own orientation might be. The parallels between the experiences of queerness and special needs are developed naturally to show similarities, especially in how they are felt by one person. “I never know why people look at me. Whether they look at me because they think I’m handsome or because they think I’m ridiculous,” London shares at one point. Insecurities about their bodies and how they are perceived by others in relation to common beauty standards are experienced by both queer and disabled people. It seems honest to see how for London these insecurities are born from multiple components, and how he feels like these qualities are used to define him in a dismissive way, taking for granted or even ignoring who he is beyond them. This insecurity is further developed in multiple scenes throughout the film, where it is undeniable that he arouses the lust and desire of his clients, but it seems as though he is being reduced to a vehicle to satisfy a fetish instead of being desired for his inner and outer beauty. It feels healing that in his sessions with the older female client, she is clearly attracted to him and interested in him for who he is.

London’s observations are delivered with thoughtful and relaxed precision, where many ideas are presented with cutting insight, and without being burdened by excessive or obvious pontification. The film shows confidence in both its audience’s ability to comprehend and decipher the importance of what is being shared and in its own choices of how to convey the very specific, layered and multifaceted illustrations of things a queer and disabled person experiences. London is a judicious and successful first feature from co-directors/writers Márcio Picoli and Victor Di Marco (also London’s titular star), that demonstrates their mature restraint and judgment, knowing what is important to tell an audience about their perspective, and understanding how to do this without over-explaining ideas that are already well-developed.