Postcards From London

Caravaggio. Botticelli. Michelangelo. There has always been something beautiful and physical about art. From the suffering of Saint Sebastian, to The Picture of Dorian Gray, to the melodramatic films by Reiner Werner Fassbinder. As Steve McLean’s film proves, a beautiful image mesmerizes, immobilizes, but also arouses. The protagonist of this new film is naive Jim, who escapes his soft-hued Essex hometown for neon, cosmopolitan London and its art, which he knows nothing about. His lovely face captures the attention of a group of young men who stylize themselves into iconic paintings for their clients’ pleasure. With his sweet naivety and appearance, Jim seems to be born to do this job. But contact with art isn’t as easy for him as for the others. The visually hypnotizing, highly stylized film transforms a body into a painting, and a painting into a body. Starring the talented young Harris Dickinson, known from Beach Rats.