Fábio Leal | O Porteiro do Dia (The Daytime Doorman) / 2016

that great equalizer: sex

by Douglas Messerli

 

Fábio Leal (screenwriter and director) O Porteiro do Dia (The Daytime Doorman) / 2016 [25 minutes]

 

Just this side of porn, Brazilian director Fábio Leal’s The Daytime Doorman is one of the sexiest short films ever made, not one bit afraid of representing the lust between the gay predatory Marcelo (Carlos Eduardo Ferraz) and his heterosexually married doorman Márcio (Edilson Silva).

    It is still early morning when Marcelo arrives home by taxi so drunk that he vomits the moment he opens the taxi door, the nighttime doorman asking if he needs help the moment the vehicle speeds off.

    “I’m as good as new,” he responds as he lumbers into the compound, only to quickly return to the guard’s window to ask what time Márcio arrives for his shift. It’s only 3:25 in the morning and the other “doorman” doesn’t arrive until 6:00.

   Back in his room he jacks off. But still he’s up early for the arrival of Márcio who brings the morning papers which tells of a murder in a Recife neighborhood of a man his brother-in-law knew. Figuring out that the doorman lives in Ipuntinga (a worker’s village in the Minas Gerais province) Marcelo wonders if he might want him to join him on his trip home since he himself has to go that way to look after a friend’s cat. He suggests they take the bus together when Márcio gets off work, but the doorman, having a bicycle, offers to give him a ride instead.

    Further conversation reveals that Márcio recognizes that both he and his roommate Hugo (Fábio Leal) are gay, but they are different kinds of queers, Hugo with a steady lover, Lucas, while Marcelo, as he puts it, is easier going, or as Marcelo himself rephrases it, “a flaming queen.”

    Márcio responds that he’s a married man with two daughters.

   Yet, this is Brazil—a sexually expressive country—and the moment the two are cycling on their way to Ipuntinga, Marcelo almost immediately licking the cycler’s arm and hinting at the delights they might enjoy when they finally arrive, all to the tune of "Pé na Tábua,” Stevie Wonder’s “Ordinary Pain” as interpreted by Marina Lima. Márcio himself slathers his rider’s neck with wet kisses.

     When, after a brief stop for Márcio just to catch his breath in Córrego do Jenipapo, the impoverished northern edge of Recife snuggled up against the mountains and therefore subject to regular mudslides, they finally reach the cat’s house where the two, after a quick drink of water, quickly begin to engage in sex—which is actually what the rest of the film is all about. Except this first time, Márcio just can’t get erect, most likely from the dehydration of his voyage or the fact that his wife is waiting up home for him. Marcelo begs to let him fuck his friend, but is immediately rejected as going too far given he’s just bedded a heterosexual man. The two lie side by side naked, Marcelo even attempting to dry hump his doorman’s friend body. But is now completely rejected as Márcio rises, dresses, and rushes off home to his wife.

    In many gay films that might be the end of the movie, a failed attempt at a gay man trying to convince a macho heterosexual to join him. But this is a Brazilian work, and the very next morning as Marcelo, almost naked, dances sexily to his morning repast of sliced tomatoes, when Márcio shows up to continue what they had begun last night.

     As Chucho E. Quintero observes on the Letterboxd site: “The one element from the film’s iconic sex scene I’ll treasure forever (and probably steal for myself) is how instead of showing us each fuck in chronological order (first, this position, then, this other position, and then, they flip) Leal mixes them together in a quick montage making time and ‘roles’ lose all meaning: at one point I wasn’t even sure who was fucking who. The bodies melt into each other, they might have been fucking for ten minutes, one hour, the whole weekend, who knows? Who cares?”

    Pure guiltless lust is the only aim of this brilliant scene and the two actors, clearly engaging in real sex, go at it full force, with everything but visual penetration and erect cocks revealed.

     Since it is now the weekend, they soon after take a river voyage, Marcelo, a sound engineer by profession listening the flow of the river water, as Márcio steers the small motored boat. Indeed, during Marcelo comings and goings, it is still Mr. Marcelo, despite the fact that by now their sex life has even spilled over into Marcelo and Hugo’s apartment.

    And here is where, as in so much of Brazilian literature, we see the ugly face of racial and social divides in the culture again rear their heads, as Hugo insists that Marcelo not bring the doorman into their apartment. Although Marcelo calls his comments for what they are, straight forward prejudice, and even points out that Hugo is himself derided for liking young boys such as Lucas, Hugo remains firm: his friend is no longer free to invite the worker into their house.

      That doesn’t stop Marcelo however, as we soon seen another aftermath of a sexy afternoon together on his mattress.

      A few days later as these apartment dwellers invite over several gay and lesbian friends for a tiny inflatable pool party on the apartment building grounds, where Marcello, now with a purple wig, strips off his swimming suit and dives in naked. Márcio has the unfortunate duty to close down their raucous party because of the complaints of other apartment dwellers, who have already called the police.

 

     Marcelo is convinced that he is reacting this way simply because he wasn’t invited, obviously not at all the situation; but the very fact that despite their sexual relationship, Márcio must still play the role of the apartment owner’s stooge, infuriates the predator. And it appears that Hugo’s fears have been justified. To bring a “mere” building employee into your sexual life is a dangerously destructive act.

       His shout of “It would [will?] be bad for you asshole,” says it all; as Marcelo pulls the plug to their recorded music, their sexual activities have come to a ferocious end due to social differences.

       Or so it might seem. But Leal’s world Marcelo, who we have seen as an always sensuous human being, is now at a beach for New Year’s when his phone rights. It is apparently Márcio at the other end, as the two chat for a few moments before Marcelo hopes that they see each other often in the New Year. The relationship hasn’t ended, and the two men will go on, at least for a while, enjoying one another’s bodies despite the dictates of marriage, social class, the roles they play in each other’s life, or any other ridiculous restrictions. Sex wins out for one of the very times in such conflicted films.

     Finally, this film almost demands to be compared with director Etienne Kallos’s 2006 short film, The Doorman.

      

Los Angeles, December 29, 2025 | Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (December 2025).