17 year old Jakob (Simon Frühwirth ) has just graduated high school and as it is the summer break his single-parent rather subdued father fixes him up with a temporary job at the abattoir he word at in town. The pair of them live in a isolated house in the country with Jacob’s elderly grandfather who is expected to take care off. Jacob’s relief from all this slightly oppressive domesticity is his computer on which behind closed doors he can cruise the gay chat lines vaguely looking to finally lose his virginity.
It in these wee hours at night that the closeted teenager finally feels alive. He suffers from uncontrollable anxiety attacks which one day actually makes him collapse at the abattoir as he is taking a shower. A through examination at the hospital in Vienna reveals that there is nothing physically wrong with him, and his problems are all psychological.
Jakob things the answers to his problems may lie with Kristjan (Paul Forman) a hunky 26 year old who has pursued him online and now wants to meet up in person. After his grandfather has died Jakob agrees to meet with Kristjan, who has more than a few issues of his own. The older boy persuades Jakob to take a hit of some strong hallucinatory drug telling him that will really help his face his fears. but it just doesn’t quite work out as planned.
Nevrland is the extraordinary debut feature film from Austrian writer/director Gregor Schmidinger who calls it a post-gay coming of age story. When Jakob embarks on his voyage of discovery it is an opportunity to show the boy’s vivid imagination as one very extended hallucinatory trip that we guess would seem even remarkable if you actually took a hit before watching it.
It’s an intense and multi-layed look at how one youth who feels abandoned and almost dead inside as he deals with his sexuality and trying to feel alive too. Schmidinger’s movie may not resound with everyone, especially those who have long forgotten their difficulties of their own passages into manhood, but it will definitely strike a loud chord with all the many Jakob’s in the world
