Jump to the good stuff: The Story | Some Thoughts | The Final Verdict
The Story:
Nevrland is about Jacob (Simon Frühwirth), a seventeen year old student who is also a temporary worker in a meat packing plant. He lives with his father and grandfather, has an anxiety disorder, and often visits a web site where men log in, chat, and masturbate.
While on the web site he meets Kristjan (Paul Forman), who is twenty-six. They develop a virtual friendship, then exchange phone numbers and decide to meet. And it’s this meeting that triggers a disturbing and trippy chain of events.
Some Thoughts:
Nevrland is a movie with lots of potential that never gets off the ground. Most of that is because we don’t get to know enough about Jacob to understand what’s motivating him or the cause for his anxiety. We get a sense of Jacob’s home life, his distant relationship with his father, and his love for his grandfather, but that’s about it.
Although the acting isn’t very good, Frühwirth does a good job portraying a teenager pointlessly wandering through life. Also, the film has a dark mood that carries throughout, and the visuals are decent. Jacob works in a slaughterhouse, and the movie doesn’t stray away from the sound of squealing pigs and their carcasses hanging upside down and cut open. While the images in the slaughterhouse are disturbing–and they’re meant to be–they never tie into the film enough to make them necessary.
While I don’t mind a strange, experimental movie that takes chances, it still needs to leave me with a sense of purpose. The film discusses the need for connection and fear but never delves into either one enough to link them. By the end of the movie, I wasn’t sure what director Gregor Schmidinger was trying to say.
The Final Verdict:
Nevrland is an art house film that loses its story in visuals and mood.
