LGBTQ+ film distributors Peccadillo Pictures have an end-of-year hit on their hands with the release of David Wagner’s debut as a feature film director and his unusually endearing movie Eismayer.
Charles Eismayer (Gerhard Liebmann) is an uptight sergeant major in charge of raw conscript recruits at an Austrian army camp. But he has a deep secret that will turn his life upside down and back again.
Based on real-life events, the film slowly exposes the life-changing dilemma at the centre of the soldier’s life. Outwardly bullying, vicious, racist and homophobic, he is a closet gay, managing the tension between his inner desires and external anger and violence, but managing it badly.
Liebmann, slightly built, seriously balding, has a face that looks like it’s been chiselled out of putty, with deep sunken cheeks and dark, haunted eyes. It’s an engrossing portrayal.
Obsessively watching the young troops drilling on the parade ground, cigarette permanently in mouth, he seems distanced from the world he has dived into.
When the rigorous, unreasonable and unswerving Eismayer comes up against young Bosnian recruit Mario (Luka Dimic), who is out and proud, rebellious, and very very handsome, Eismayer can’t cope and his system of attrition fails.
Couple this with the rapid onset of cancer, and the departure of his somewhat cold and distant wife and loving son, and Wagner has all the ingredients for a tense, but understated queer romance.
Through a number of dramatic confrontations and crises, the two men grow close, and unlikely as the storyline is (remember it’s a true story), the arc of their emotional and physical journey intrigues us and draws us in. Eismayer passionately cares for his young son, making up for the broken relationship he had with his own father. There’s a poignant scene where the young boy confronts Eismayer about his homosexuality, and tells his father: “I like boys more than girls.” It’s a heart-stopping moment.
And Wagner adds one more twist – Mario takes control of Eismayer’s recuperation and strict exercise routine – the free-as-air rebel becomes the gentle dictator, and the bully does what he’s told.
Though you can easily research the true events, I won’t reveal the ending, except to say it is a satisfying completion of the two men’s life journeys.
Eismayer is on digital platforms and Peccadillo POD