Gregor Schmidinger | Homophobia / 2012

his little secret

by Douglas Messerli

 

Gregor Schmidinger (screenwriter and director) Homophobia / 2012 [23 minutes]

 

Austrian director Gregor Schmidinger did four films in the first two decades of the Millenium, the truly outstanding short The Boy Next Door, shot in Los Angeles while he was studying screenwriting at the University of California, Los Angeles in 2008 (which I review in that year), Der Grenzgänger (2009), the film discussed below, Homophobia (2012), and the award-winning feature Nevrland (2019), which I’ve not yet seen, but plan to soon.

      These films are so outstanding that it seems a shame that, although he has been active in Austrian gay politics, that he hasn’t made more movies. His was a remarkable talent which should have been nurtured by financial aid. Perhaps we simply has not had anything new to say; that happens to many a young queer screenwriter and director. But what he did accomplish was so rich, I’d like to have seen more, and hope we still get that opportunity.

     Influenced by the suicide of a gay man, Jamey Rodemeyer in 2011 (and a video Rodemeyer himself had previously submitted to the Internet-based non-profit group, “It Get’s Better,”) this film takes place in the 1990s during the Winter Solstice on the Austrian border, on the last day of a group before being released of their duty of a group of young adolescent Austrian servicemen.

       For quite a while evidently, the other boys in his troop have been bullying the young Michael (Michael Glantschnig) who they perceive as a fag, in particular because he often appears to be looking at their bodies during the showers. The night before the events of this film, indeed, Michael has a nightmare in which he stands passively while another young soldier to whom he is attracted, Raphael (Joseph Mohamed) pushes a gun into his mouth a quietly threatens to pull the trigger.

     During their morning showers, another soldier, Jürgen (Günther Sturmlechner) grabs Michael from behind, demanding Raphael turn his shower cold, Michael pulling away, and in the process throwing Jürgen to the floor before storming out of the shower room to dry off.

     Jürgen follow him, creeping up behind him to whisper that he knows “all about [his] little secret,” moving his hand along his thighs and chest as he suggests that he knows who much Michael would love him to fuck him as he eventually throws him against a nearby locker, bruising the boy’s eye. Later, when forced to report to the commanding officer (Harald Bodingbauer), Michael simply reports that he has slipped, although of the office wishes he might tell the truth to help him deal with the situation.

        For the last night of their military service, the same unit is sent out one last time on the Austrian-Hungarian border, and given the fact that he has heard Jürgen joking with others about his homosexuality, argues that we will remain on watch duty, refusing to enter the tiny two-person tents.

       In the middle of the night Rafael joins him, and sharing a cigarette they begin a long conversation of what will happen after their release. Rafael can simply not wait to return home and be served his mother’s pork roast. But when asked what he plans, Michael can only report that he cannot return anywhere, but must take over his family farm.

       Amazed that he really will be a farmer, joking that he must now marry a fat fräu, Michael grows even more ill-at-ease, answering that no, of course he has no woman in mind.

       Rafael admits that he doesn’t know if he loves the hometown girl who used to give him blowjobs, and is also unsure what the future might bright him sexually, joking that maybe they’re both gay, destined to give others like them blowjobs. Maybe Michael’s will be even better than his girlfriend’s back home.

      Suddenly, Rafael determines to play a kind of sexual game, hold both their hands in front of their mouths in tandem and blowing hot air between them, evidently a kind of powerful force, at least for Michael, who shortly afterwards, having taken the sensation for a kind of intense sharing attempts to kiss Rafael, who immediately backs off, shouting he’s not gay.

      Michael grabs up the gun, pointing it at his friend, declaring he can’t know what it’s like, having to return as he must to a small town where all the neighbors will gossip after church about their local neighbor being a fag. And her perceives just how bleak and lonely his life will be in rural Austria, declaring he would rather die, and turning the gun on himself.

      Rafael slowly attempts to beg him to put the machine gun down, attempting to assure him that he is liked. By whom? asks the desperate boy? Rafael declaring that he himself likes him as he moves closer, insisting he will have trust him.

       Then why does he join the others, Michael asked, in their homophobic remarks. Rafael has no answer, but eventually Michael gives up his gun, and we see the group, quietlly driving back to their barracks, as the very dark rumbling score “Turbine Womb,” composed by Anja Plaschg pumps out its foreboding chords.

       Ultimately, in the world he lives, there probably is no answer for Michael, who at the best will have to live a life in private, escaping every so often to another village to have sex or to a local country park as do the gay farmers in Mark Christopher’s 2007 short film Heartland.

 

Los Angeles, August 30, 2024

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (August 2024).