Movies Reviews

Gone - Tribeca Film Festival Review

By Ron Wilkinson Jun 2, 2011, 13:26 GMT

A breakdown of international justice that deserves to be shown far and wide.

“Gone” is a documentary about the disappearance of Aeryn Gilleran in 2007 in Vienna, Austria. The film conveys the haunting, murky feeling of things far away gone terribly awry. There is something about a disappearance overseas that is especially troubling. There is a disconnect because of language and culture.

There is a lack of control because of international legal discontinuities. Above all, there is the painful possibility that a loved one has died in a foreign land, at the hands of strangers, without so much as a mention.

All of these painful realities came to settling in the soul of veteran police officer Kathy Gilleran. She made her successful career in a small city in upstate New York. This is plain talking country where people help each other out in times of severe weather and snowfalls deep enough to bury houses.

The police are good people who help other good people and put the bad people in jail. Things are blessedly black and white. People do either the right thing, or the wrong thing.

Kathy’s son Aeryn is the kind of person who would be the last one to get in trouble. He had a graduate degree and was a researcher for the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), headquartered in Vienna.

He was smart, loved to dress up and melt into the well-to-do crowd in the upscale districts of the old city. Aeryn was handsome and he was gay. Handsome enough to be awarded Mr. Gay Austria.

On October 31st, 2007, Kathy received a call from the U.N. reporting that Aeryn had failed to show up for work two days in a row, without notice of any kind. This was very unusual for a man who was a star performer by all reports. Kathy immediately flew to Vienna, confirmed her son’s disappearance and entered into discussion with the Vienna police. The police showed little interest.

This film is a model exercise in getting inside a mother’s head when she is undergoing the most excruciating pain. Gilleran is at the center of three hurricanes, forming the perfect storm. She is an expert police officer herself and sees immediately that the lack of police interest is, in fact, a cover-up.

She is also reacting to an injustice that every fiber of her body has been taught is wrong. This is what the bad guys do, not what the police do. The precision-saturated Vienna police department is acting as if the case is closed before it was even opened. Thirdly, Gilleran has a terrible sinking feeling that she will never see her son again.

Every parent’s worst fear has come to her in the context of a complete moral and ethical breakdown on the part of the law enforcement community she has come to hold dear.

As the story unfolds, we learn that her son was last seen running from an exclusive men’s sauna in downtown Vienna, towards the Danube River. The one or two witnesses that Gilleran is able to track down, with little help from the police, report Aeryn had an unmistakable look on his face. It was the look of deathly fear.

Those who have seen it, never forget it. It is as unforgettable as it is unmistakable. He was undressed, wrapped in a towel. The police report stated he jumped into the Danube, but his body was never recovered.

In fact, there was never a search of the river, nor was there ever any questioning of the patrons of the Kaiserbründl spa. It seems the spa catered to gay, and possibly some straight, men who had high social and political ranking in Vienna.

These were men whose names did not appear in newspapers and whose names certainly did not appear in police records. These were men who did attend spas such as the Kaiserbründl, especially in the company of the former Mr. Gay Austria.

To this day Kathy Gilleran stand vigils outside the spa. After the powers-that-be force her away, she stands across the street, bearing a picture of Aeryn and pleading for information about his disappearance. The reaction of the Vienna police is homophobic. The context of their world seems to be filled with neo-Nazi undercurrents and skinhead rationales.

There are people who know more about this story but the fear and secrecy surrounding events deep within the closeted confines of the Kaiserbründl ensure silence. She keeps hoping someone will come forward. For all of our sakes, we should hope so, too.

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Documentary
Directed and Written by: Gretchen Morning, John Morning
Release Date: Tribeca Film Festival World Premier April 10, 2011
MPAA: Not rated
Runtime: 85 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Color: Color