Stephan Kämpf and Andreas Kessler | Camouflage / 2014

masks

by Douglas Messerli

 

Stephan Kämpf and Andreas Kessler (screenwriters and directors) Camouflage / 2014 [8 minutes]

 

In this German film from 2014, the directors explore to men Max (Theo Trebs) and Christian (Jonisch Lencer), tent mates, as in the middle of the forest as soldiers they are ordered to paint each other with the greens and blacks of camouflage.

   At first it appears that Max is attempting to get his friend, as he tremblingly paints Chris’s face, that he loves him or at least appreciates his actions which he has done on his behalf of. But word as already apparently gotten out that Chris is a fag, and even the staff sergeant (Daniel Fripan) perceives them as a couple of gay men, checking their work over closely and demanding their keep their fingers where they belong, while also insisting he doesn’t care what they do back in their tent.

     Max has evidently fought another soldier who has called Chris a fag and wants his lover’s appreciation for his act. But instead Chris keeps demanding that he not make such a thing about it, that he relax in his protectiveness. It appears to Max that he is suggesting that their relationship does not truly matter, that his actions have been unappreciated.

      But we soon recognize that the real issue is the age-old problem that although Max is in love with Chris he still isn’t ready to admit that he himself is gay, suggesting that anyone in their situation without a woman who behave in such a manner.

      It is clearly Chris is more comfortable with the situation, while, as Chris himself puts it, he is quite literally “wetting his pants.” He is terrified that he too will be called a fag, this despite the fact it is so apparent that the two are sexually engaged.

      Max begs Chris to just keep pretending, to lay low so that no one will figure out they are sexually involved. If they continue to lay low things can go on “as usual,” he keeps repeating. In short, just as they are remaking one another over into a kind of pretense, so Max wants they life to remain hidden behind an invisible mask.

       Chris, more than a little bemused by his friend’s terror, and asks the obvious question: “And what if they do find out? …Everything still as usual?”

      There is a momentary pause, before perhaps the closest thing to a statement of love is uttered by Max: “As usual.”

       Their finger painting of each other’s faces has itself been a strange sort of testament to their intense love.  

       If this is certainly not an original situation, the way their love is revealed is quite beautiful, as they whisper their challenges to one another amidst their placement of their fingers across the ears, noses, cheeks, and even lips of the other.

 

Los Angeles, November 4, 2026

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (November 2026).