NYFF: “London” Finds Humanity in the Passenger Seat
The art of small talk is something every customer service employee has mastered. It can be painful or, in rare instances, it can be profound. Sometimes a stranger is able to bring a person out of their shell in ways a close friend never could. Director Sebastian Brameshuber’s New York Film Festival-screening film, London, is a film of small talk in close quarters. Despite these circumstances, London is an intimate portrayal of the human condition while sitting in the passenger seat of a car.
A car-pooling app sets the scene for London. Bobby (Bobby Sommer) regularly drives between Vienna and Salzburg on the Westautobahn. He’s visiting a friend in the hospital, but that’s rarely the topic of conversation between Bobby and his passengers. Unlike Lyft or Uber, this app is distinctly car-pooling, which creates a more conversational situation. There’s a reason people choose to ride with Bobby rather than someone on one of the other apps. They want to meet new people and see the commute in a different manner. Bobby is more than willing to humor his passengers. Not just in conversation, but in detours as well, which allows London to enjoy the journey more than the destination.
Courtesy of NYFF
The passengers who come and go in Bobby’s car never stay for long. They’re either being dropped off in the city he’s traveling to or somewhere along the way. Each of them is different from the last. One is a soldier who’s conflicted about what it would mean to take up arms in a real war. Another is a queer Bosnian activist. Someone else is a film lover who has one of the strangest, kindest opinions on James Cameron’s Avatar that has ever been committed to film. There are only two things all these passengers have in common. One, they’ve found themselves in Bobby’s car. Two, they’re human. In a sense, the viewer is the same. We’re riders with Bobby and humans who are on earth, trying to understand the world around us.
London captures the freedom that exists in the confined environment of the car between two people whose paths may never cross again. In Lucy Dacus’ song “Brando,” there are lyrics that capture the essence of London. “That’s only something you would say in the car / We’ve been breathing the same air for too long.” Everyone, Bobby included, is seemingly more honest than they are in their regular lives. Maybe it’s that the passenger and the driver can’t make prolonged eye contact as they’re talking, the white-line fever of traveling on a highway, or the claustrophobia of a small car. There’s likely not a way anyone could test which theory, or some combination of the three, is correct, but that doesn’t take away from the universal feeling London has portrayed in its story.
Little news bits on the radio of Bobby’s car reveal that something bigger is happening in the rest of the world, but the main focus remains on these people. Despite its limited scope in terms of cast and location, London tackles the very real issues impacting society today. From immigration, LGBT rights, and the weight of our capitalistic world, London shows the daily convergence of these forces. It highlights how one issue doesn’t just impact the person experiencing it, but the rest of the people in the world as well. London is gentle and introspective, the kind of car ride that could go on forever.
Follow me on BlueSky, Instagram, Letterboxd, TikTok, YouTube, & Facebook. Check out Movies with My Dad, a podcast recorded on the car ride home from the movies.
support your local film critic!
~
support your local film critic! ~
Beyond the Cinerama Dome is run by one perpetually tired film critic
and her anxious emotional support chihuahua named Frankie.
Your kind donation means Frankie doesn’t need to get a job…yet.