Eklipse – first-look review

Against the idyllic backdrop of the Alps, young best friends Tomy (Moritz Hohlrieder) and Chris (Finley Brown) are spending the summer helping out on a dairy farm managed by Tomy’s uncle. They milk the cows, they clean the shed, and in their free time they play in the forest, excitedly await the upcoming 1999 solar eclipse, and spy on the pretty girlfriend of the farm owner’s son. Their lives seem care-free, but it quickly becomes clear that the adults in Tomy’s life are harbouring a secret. His father has AIDS and is being treated in hospital; Tomy’s mother has told him it’s just a nasty bout of pneumonia, but it becomes clear that rumours are spreading around town, and it’s only a matter of time before this gossip spreads.

Manuel Wetscher’s drama is inspired by his childhood shaped by his father’s AIDS status and death from Kaposi’s sarcoma. The filmmaker honours his memory by incorporating personal VHS tapes into Eklipse, reminding the audience that while Tomy and Chris’ story is fictional, the stigma that surrounded (and to some extend still surrounds) AIDS is not. When a local carelessly tells Chris about Tomy’s father having ​“the gay disease” the youngster is shocked and frightened, unable to comprehend the reality of the illness, and immediately shuns his former friend without explanation. The cruelty is swift and shocking to a contemporary audience; Tomy, still clueless, is devastated by Chris’ sudden shunning, and the farm suddenly becomes a battleground.

This intimate and personal film does an excellent job at placing us within close proximity of its two young leads, creating a sense of being given access to their secret world. There is a naturalism to Wetscher’s approach that separates it from more overtly emotional films about AIDS, yet Eklipse often feels frustrating in its slow pacing, and a subplot about Tomy’s uncle distracts from the stronger throughline of Tomy and Chris being divided by a secret that is much bigger than the both of them.