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Review

Gone: The Disappearance of Aeryn Gillern starts mining for tears right away. As Kathy Gillern talks about her son Aeryn, his upbringing and their close relationship, her face glows with affection. It quickly becomes all the more heartbreaking that Kathy hasn’t seen him since 2007.

Raised in upstate New York, Aeryn moved to Vienna as a college student and eventually began working for the United Nations Industrial Development Organization. He had a happy life in Austria – complete with a boyfriend and numerous neighborhood pals and co-workers who looked upon him with great respect and admiration. He even won the title of “Mr. Gay Austria.” The only thing that was missing was his mother. A retired police officer, Kathy had been planning to sell her home and move to Vienna to be with Aeryn. Unfortunately, she never got the opportunity.

On October 31st, 2007, Kathy received a voice mail from Aeryn’s employer, informing her that he had not been seen or heard from in several days. The very next day, Kathy was on a flight to Vienna, assuming that there had been some kind of misunderstanding and that she would quickly locate her son. That was not to be the case. Even now, close to five years later, the details of Aeryn’s disappearance remain sketchy. He was last spotted at the Kaiserbründl, a local gay sauna, where, according to some reports, a scuffle ensued. Aeryn was last seen fleeing the establishment and has not been heard from since.

Aeryn’s co-workers had attempted to file a missing persons report before Kathy arrived, but were swiftly rejected based on the fact that he was not an Austrian citizen. When Kathy sought information from the police, she found little help or support. The detectives assigned to the case made minimal effort to solve this mystery. They maintain that Aeryn suffered a severe emotional breakdown, fled the establishment without any clothes, ran naked through the cold city streets and intentionally plunged to his death in the Danube Canal. This theory, supported by little to no evidence, makes sense to the detectives based around their notion that all homosexuals are in fragile mental and emotional states. Kathy made every effort to cooperate with the police, but was met with hostility, suspicion and homophobic assertions at each turn. Despite his respectable background and clean bill of health, Aeryn was painted as a diseased sexual deviant who reached an inevitable expiration. Desperate for answers, Kathy used her well-honed skills as a police officer to launch her own investigation.

Directors John and Gretchen Morning keep the film’s focus entirely on Kathy. Most likely due to budgetary restrictions, she is the only interview subject in the entire movie. I’m sure, if given the opportunity, John and Gretchen would sit down and talk to everyone who had any connection to Aeryn and his disappearance, but they did not. Ultimately, the lack of supporting stories works against the film as a whole. Hearing from other involved parties would greatly strengthen the impact. Though nothing about Kathy Gillern suggests even the tiniest hint of dishonesty, her account of these events is filtered through her distress. It is entirely possible that her perception of how she was treated by authorities – who, most of the time, were not speaking English – could be skewed. Nevertheless, Kathy’s singular recollection remains consistently riveting (though, obviously, heartbreaking) and the filmmakers use a wealth of home video, including video taken by Kathy during her search for clues, that lend the audience a distinct sense of time and place.

Understandably, Kathy will never be able to let her son rest until she knows what really happened to him. Without concrete proof of his death, she will always entertain the possibility that, someday, he will come walking through the front door with a crazy explanation for his long absence. Each year, she returns to Vienna to hold a vigil in her son’s honor, hoping that someone with a new piece evidence or testimony will come forward. Hopefully, this documentary will provide some help.

 -- Robert O'Neill