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Nevrland (German/English)

When I started watching this film, I thought it had some good potential. But it totally lost steam half way. It turned into this self obsessed psychological trippy nightmare that was not my cup of tea. For a change, I don't have any recommendation on how this film could have been better. I am very sure that there are people out there who probably think that this by itself was a very good film, just sadly I dont fit in that category.

17 year old Jakob is a very shy teenager who lives with his father and his ailing grandfather. He starts working in the pig meat factory with his father and at nights he goes to these gay chat rooms to chat and watch porn and feel little bit alive. Jacob is struggling with an anxiety disorder that makes life increasingly difficult for him. One night, he meets 26-year old Kristian on gay chat and after a few times, they both decide to meet in person. The rest of the film is about the interactions between these 2 men, which I felt was an interesting take on reality v/s your imagination. Is Kristian real, is he part of Jakob's imagination, is there some link to Jakob's anxiety is what's tried to be shown but as an audience I didn't get any of those answers, sadly.

There is a very strong gay undercurrent. In his dreams Jakob runs through this beautiful woods, almost naked. Yes, he is also looking for sex or maybe feel of it in the virtual world, but I am still not sure what was the whole issue that he had since childhood. Whats this fear that keeps looming over him. Like I said above, the film was going interesting in the first half but post Kristian's entry and their interactions, it just goes into this weird zone. You know Jakob is detached but why? and why does Kristian excite him? Whats the connection between them? What was the whole childhood piece in the end. I am still not sure. Kristian was just an enigma, albeit a good looking one. But in absence of proper character development; its hard to say if the actors were good in their craft or not!

This film had no substance but had too much style. If you like punky, different, art house-ish cinema that keeps you thinking for rest of the week, go for it, otherwise avoid. (3/10)

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