Autism up close in Roger Ross Williams' moving, unsettling doc -- LIFE, ANIMATED

The first thing we see in LIFE, ANIMATED are home movies of an adorable, "normal," little boy, along with his youthful-looking, though probably early middle-aged parents. Then we go forward in time to that boy as an adult autistic male, and those parents, who are now seniors. What happened in between is the meat of a new documentary currently making the theatrical rounds and opening here in South Florida today that tries to get us "inside this prison of autism." And what we're seeing here is not mere Asperger syndrome but full-out autism.

The family in focus is that of reporter/writer Ron Suskind, his wife Cornelia, and their two sons, older brother Walt and younger, autistic brother Owen. The film is based upon Mr. Suskinds best-selling book about his family's experience, and the director here is the Oscar-winning filmmaker (for the 2010 documentary short subject, Music by Prudence), Roger Ross Williams, shown at left, whose 2014 full-length documentary God Loves Uganda, was shortlisted for an Academy Award.

While every family that must deal with an autistic child has its own special experience, the thing that made the Suskinds' so unusual was the manner in which the early, classic cartoons of Walt Disney figured into the education of Owen and the ability to reach into his "prison" and at least help to somewhat bring him out of it.

I suspect that this is probably an amazing story, but the movie only partially captures it. We are told that the family was better able to communicate with Owen once they realized that he was using the Disney films (which he watched over and over) to communicate. But we get only a small sense of how and why this worked so well. What we do get, in spades, is the pain the parents go through and the incredible amount of work they must do to simply get through life, as they try to bring their son even somewhat "up to speed." For any parent, I suspect that this will be a very sad film to watch. It just hurts.

What we learn about Owen is at times somewhat inspiring (we see him, late in the film, take a trip to France to address an international conference on autism), but still, it is clear that the road ahead will be very difficult, especially considering that these parents, of course, will finally die, even as Owen's ability to sustain himself seems tentative at best. The saddest part of the film is devoted to brother Walt, who seems to take his responsibility for his brother very seriously. Watching these scenes, you want to give this guy a hug and ask, please, isn't there something we can do to help?

Style-wise, the movie is a combo of archival family film and video footage, outtakes from some of those old Disney films, talking head interviews, and some lovely, original black and-white (and finally color) animation that also tries to help us enter that prison of Owen's. We're with Walt and Owen as the question of sex education arises (we also meet his "girlfriend" for a bit). How do you teach Owen sex, Walt wonders? Via Disney porn?

We also meet celebrities such as Disney voice actors Jonathan Freeman (Jafar's voice in Aladdin) and Gilbert Gottfried (shown above, left: the voice of Jafar's parrot, Iago, in the same film). Yes, this movie is occasionally inspirational and feel-good. But it is more often -- due to the reality of the situation -- very, very sad.  After playing major cities like New York and Los Angeles, it will open down here in South Florida at the Lake Worth Playhouse in Lake Worth on Friday August 12, and then here in Boca Raton at Regal's Shadowood 16 and in Miami Beach at the Regal's South Beach 18 on Friday. September 2, and finally in Fort Lauderdale, at the classic Gateway Theater on September 9. Click here then scroll down to see all currently scheduled playdates, with cities and theaters listed.

The Autism Media Channel's WHO KILLED ALEX SPOURDALAKIS? raises some ugly questions

Having now seen a number of documentaries dealing with autism and its discontents, TrustMovies can vouch that the new one titled WHO KILLED ALEX SPOURDALAKIS? is one of the most disturbing of all. A horror story about the kind of medical care dished out by major hospitals and their doctors to patients afflicted with a disease like autism, the movie is less a mystery -- we know from the start who killed the boy in question: his mother (shown below) and his godmother -- than a history, both narrative and visual, of what led up to this murder.

The movie has made that point -- about ignorance and indifference in our medical establishment -- so quietly and effectively that it does not need its ram-the-point-down-our-throats finale. This is unfortunate because the movie will have by that time convinced most of its audience, so going over the top may well undo the good already accomplished. This aside, Who Killed Alex Spourdalakis? is a remarkable document about the lengths a loving mother and godmother will go to save their son (below is the photo of the two at the time of their arrest), and the stupidity of some -- not all -- of the doctors supposedly helping the boy.

Early on, after the onset of autism was diagnosed, Alex's mom placed him on a recommended diet that helped his symptoms enormously. (We've seen this same treatment shown in other documentaries, as well.) Why Alex was ever taken off that diet is not explained to a good enough degree, but once the symptoms began again, there would seem to be no excuse for not putting the boy back on the healthier regimen.

Alex's allergic reactions and inability to handle many of the drugs given him would underscore once again our over-reliance on drug use. In Alex's case, the film soon becomes the anti-prescription-drug movie of all time. Much of the science shown us here is fascinating, as is the degree of connection between autisim and intestinal damage.

The movie points a justified finger in the director of a certain Dr. Berman, chief of Loyola Hospital's pediatric gastroenterology -- who stupidly and heartlessly put psychiatry above the management of Alex's physical pain. When at last, we see a doctor who does the right thing -- and view the results of this -- it's a wonderful respite from the continuing hell-on-earth that Alex and his two moms have suffered.

Other than Alex's mom and godmother, there are other heroes in the movie, too: an autism advocate (above) who come to the defense of the threesome, and doctors (below) who actually know what they are doing and care enough to consequently do the right thing for the boy.

Unfortunately, by the time we reach the end of the story, Alex's mom has grown so weakened in mind and spirit that she appears to be unable to any longer make intelligent decisions. (The doctor she agrees to go with toward the end is clearly the wrong one.) But after seeing what the woman and her son have been through, I doubt you will believe that you could have done much better by the boy.

Who Killed Alex Spourdalakis? -- from disinformation, running only a bit over one hour, and packed with anger-making information and history -- is now available on DVD and VOD. Click here to learn how you can obtain the DVD. For VOD, consult your local cable provider.

WRETCHES & JABBERERS, Gerardine Wurzburg's film on autism, opens in NYC

The second film on autism to appear this week alone -- TrustMovies covered Loving Lampposts just this past Sunday -- WRETCHES & JABBERERS, the new documentary from Gerardine Wurzburg, appears with the help of the partnership of the Autism Society for its theatrical release April 1: the day that begins National Autism Awareness month. Ms Wurzberg (pictured below), as well as her subjects, deserve thanks and praise for putting the autism-affected at the center of this sometimes difficult film because watching these people in action is not an easy nor a particularly pleasant task. Yet it has its rewards.

The task at hand is finally a salutary one, for it brings us up-close and personal, in a way we seldom see, with the disconnect between how the autistic feel and think, and how unable they often are to communicate these feelings and thoughts. In Lovings Lampposts, filmmaker Todd Drezner does this, as well, but he gives us only short snaps, as he moves from character to character. We understand what is going on, and the difficulties the autistic have in communicating, but not in the same way we do in Wretches & Jabberers -- which spends much more of its time watching its two main autistic characters and a few subsidiary ones, constantly trying and trying and trying to communicate. They achieve some real success, it must be said, but at a price. The movie pays a price for this, as well.

It's a double-edged sword, this concentration on character that the documentary provides. We see and hear (more often read via the computer screens that Ms Wurzburg photographs) what Larry Bissonnette (above, right) and Tracy Thresher (above, left), are thinking and feeling. But this results in an awful lot of time spent on the effort, with less on the result, and this also makes for a certain amount of repetition in the film. Thanks to various breakthroughs in the understanding of what the autistic actually experience, we now know that they are often more initially reachable via visuals than by the sounds of words. Consequently, the more vocally challenged among them input and output using their computer screens more than their mouths.

Showing everything in this manner also helps drag the movie down, depending on the viewer's ability to proces all this communication via reading and/or hearing. Sometimes, particularly when we're dealing with characters in Japan (below) or Finland (above), the verbiage is sometimes translated into spoken English so that we can skip the reading process.

During the course of the film, we travel around the world with Tracy and Larry -- to Dubai, Sri Lanka, Japan and Finland -- before coming back to Vermont (where Tracy lives and works: he's a spokesperson/agitator for the rights of the autistic). Larry, we learn, is an artist who exhibits and sells his work -- shown below in the penultimate photo -- locally, nationally and internationally.

We visit tem-ples in Sri Lanka, attend autism con-ferences in Tokyo and Finland, and meet others who are autistic in both coun-tries and elsewhere. The most moving moment comes as the Japanese mother of an autistic son bids the Americans good-bye; you want to hold her close and assure her things will get better.

Despite the repetitions, musical selections that comment unneces-sarily on what we're already seeing, and the difficulty you may find in watching Larry, Tracy and their new friends for any length of time, pay close attention to the verbal and written information you see. There are gems buried here: "We are the perfect example of intelligence working itself out in a much different way."

Wretches & Jabberers will open Friday, April 1, in New York at the AMC Empire 25 for a week's run.  You can access all the past and upcoming playdates here.

Todd Drezner's LOVING LAMPPOSTS offers a different --but necessary-- look at autism

Of the many autism-themed documentaries to come down the pike over the past few years (the subject accounts for practically a mini-genre in itself), LOVING LAMPPOSTS is among the best. And not because it offers any ironclad assessment about this condition (that seems to affect an increasing amount of children world-wide) or its cause (which remains, as ever, up for grabs). Rather, this quiet and relatively short (82 minutes) film -- produced, directed and edited by Todd Drezner, who is himself the parent of an autistic child -- deals more with the societal perception of autism, including (perhaps most important) that of these kids by their own parents.

Many autistic children focus to near-obsession on odd objects, and Mr. Drezner, shown at left, begins his movie with shots of his son (the cute kid on the poster above) who has a thing for lampposts, particularly those in Brooklyn's Prospect Park near where the family resides. The filmmaker spend little time on his own situation, however. Instead he's off talking to many other parents, doctors, educators, therapists and -- most important for his thesis -- the autistic themselves, both children and adults. The diversity we see here is, well, stunning. And this, of course, changes our perception. There are so many variations in abilities (some obvious, others not so), and even -- another surprise -- within the same person, depending on the moment, that you cannot come away from the film without realizing the autism does indeed mean "different" rather than "sick" or "crazy."

Drezner understands how most parents of autistic kids (that's Christina Chew, with her son Charlie, above) want to help their children more than anything else. The filmmaker also understands how easy it is to play into the "fight" scenario (let's declare war on autism!) or the even easier-to-assimilate autism "epidemic," with its attendant and confusing we-must-find-a-cause, which has included villains such as vaccines (for which the filmmaker gives a pretty fair pro-and-con assessment, before coming down clearly, as has medical science, on the pro-vaccine side).

What is Autism? We hear many of the wide-ranging definitions, from the physically- to the mentally-ill to the simply "different."  Yet, how different the person is from the accepted definition of "normal" usually paves the way for the autistic child's life ahead. Perhaps, the filmmaker suggests, parents of these children might want to turn their mind from the idea of making their kids "normal." Drezner shows us, via several of these children and adults, that autism can mean brilliance (as in the case of Sharisa Kochmeister, above, right, with her father Jay) as well as great difficulty, though the difficulty remains a constant to some extent.

One of the really "choice" subjects is autistic adult Stephen Shore (above, left), whose explanation of how he came to understand the concepts  "dating" and "interest from the opposite sex" is quite extraordinary. This section may call to mind the movie Adam, in which Hugh Dancy plays an Asperger syndrome man (Asberger is considered to be a milder form of autism), and in fact makes that fine film seem even more believable.

Mr. Drezner asks so many good questions, too (and then tried hard to get answers from his subjects): "If we think about not thinking 'normal,' then what do we think about?" is one of these. "Not even wrong" is another phrase that is explored to excellent effect, because once we can understand the meaning of not-even-wrong, explains one fellow, then we're primed to understand so much more.

Even low-functioning and high-functioning can reside in the same person (that's Dora Raymaker, above) and can in fact change back and forth within the same day. Still, there clearly is a kind of continuum, and according to Drezner, the name/label neurodiversity may be the best way so far to view the autistic and may also be the ticket into society for many of these afflicted (if I may use that word).

Like the alcoholic, it would seem, the autistic may never be fully "cured" but will remain so even after "getting better" or incorporating into normalcy.  In fact, suggests Drezner, the attempt parents make at having their autistic children ape normalcy may be doing more damage than good for many of these kids, perhaps tamping down some of their more brilliant qualities in the process.

The words "Autism is..." appear on the screen often throughout this film. No answer is forthcoming, however, but the idea that the condition may be a gift, as well as a curse is certainly suggested. Stablization treatments, the filmmaker shows, can include everything from changes in diet to "imitating" your autistic child in order to enter his/her world.  But he cautions viewers that "a fight against ____'s autism should not become a fight against _____ himself, or against ______'s being the way that s/he is."

Fill in the blanks above with the name of the autistic person in your life. And do see this film, which will be available on DVD starting Tuesday, March 29, from Cinema Libre Studio. You can purchase the documentary here.  Or rent it from... where?  You can save it at Netflix, but that is no indication that this increasingly remote DVD behemoth will ever bother ordering it. At Amazon, you can't rent or stream, but you can save one buck off the retail purchase.  Blockbuster? Forget it. How much longer, in fact, will this mistake-from-its-inception (but one that managed to put many small video stores out of business) be with us?  Still, Loving Lampposts is a film that absolutely ought to be streamed or rented. Ah, well....

A MOTHER'S COURAGE: Fridriksson's film shows how to reach and teach the autistic

The last two times TrustMovies covered autism, the films in question had to do with diet and vaccinations and with the use of animals as a calming influence. This week a new documentary opens that is chock full of helpful hints on dealing with the situation when you have children suffering from this condition. If my use of the phrase helpful hints sounds slight or demeaning, it is not.  A MOTHER'S COURAGE: Talking Back to Austism is literally jam-packed with solid, useful information, some of which you might already know but much of which you probably don't.  The movie arrived as a revelation to me, so I suspect it will at least prove worth a watch for those who are interested in this subject.

The film follows the journey of a mother named Margret, an Icelandic woman with an eleven-year-old, severely autistic son, Keli. (The two are pictured above and on the poster, further above.) Determined to reach him and help him grow and learn, Margret  travels the globe (the family, clearly, is rather well off) in search of information and methods that might help, talking to the "experts" --  from well-known (Dr. Temple Grandin and Dr. Simon Baron-Cohen, shown at bottom) to less-known like Soma Mukhopadhyay (below, left) whose austistic son Tito (below, right) prompted her to develop her own intensive curriculum called RPM (Rapid Prompting Method) that has helped Tito and numerous others.

We follow Margret and Keli and meet a number of other autistic children at various levels of development and discover that many of these children appear to have very high IQs.  When we see them open up and discover how to communicate, either verbally or visually, the experience is extraordinarily compelling.  If the title Genius Within has not just been used for the new Glenn Gould documentary, I would immediately bestow it on this fine film.

Director Fridrick Thor Fridricksson (shown at left)  has done a yeoman job of organizing and filming, keeping us pretty much fascinated and involved first to last. We come away from the documentary somewhat in awe of the several mothers (and a couple of fathers) shown here, whose all-encompassing need to help their children has resulted in breakthroughs that are slowly building up a greater understanding of autism, for which there is still no cure -- nor even anything approaching a thorough understanding of the cause.

Fridricksson and his director of photography Jon Karl Helgason have produced a documentary with much better visuals than we often find even in independent narrative films, and the scenery (Margret and family seem to very nearly travel the world) is often an eyeful, too.

But finally it's the kids who make the film. Watching them communicate and learn is alternately exasperating and enriching, making you realize that what we see here is but a taste -- and a highly condensed one -- of what their parents must endure.  But the rewards, we also see, are immense and joyous.

A Mother's Courage: Talking Back to Autism, from First Run Features, open this Friday, September 24, in NYC at the Quad Cinema, and in Los Angeles at the Laemmle Music Hall.  Click here then scroll down for further playdates.

DVDebut: THE HORSE BOY -- one family's amazing autism story

When your child is threatened -- in this case with a seem-
ingly incurable prob-
lem -- anything, everything goes. So it is with Kristin Neff, Rupert Isaacson and their son Rowan (all three are shown, with horse, two photos below).  Rowan, in his very young years, develops full-out autism. Yes: the kind that is given to waves of non-stop tantrums and no control over bowel movements. These waves can last for up to four hours and are neurological in origin, which makes the child seemingly unreachable and worse, impossible to console.

When you've raised a "normal" child (yes, I know: whatever that means), it is very nearly impossible to imagine experiencing something like this. The other films that TrustMovies has lately seen on this subject (Her Name is Sabine, Autism: Made in the USA and even the narrative movie Adam, while all important and very good in their way, seem rather conventional next to THE HORSE BOY, a documentary directed and photographed by Michel Orion Scott, shown below.

To the wilds of Mongolia from the not-so-wilds of present- day Texas the film takes us, and the journey is alternately uplifting and upsetting but always just plain bizarre.  Because, during this family's most difficult time, young Rowan suddenly seems able to be calmed by proximity to horses, father Rupert researches everything he can about this connection and learns that Shamans -- yes, those people -- on the Mongolian plains are noted for their ability to work with the autistic.  Off goes the family, eastward to Mongolia.

What happens there is, depending on your viewpoint, amazing or maybe weird.  The film does not push us into belief, although seeing does tend to lead to believing.  For a time it seems as though Rowan goes one step forward and a couple back (at one point he even rejects horses).  Dad claims he is a better father because of his son's autism, which has forced him to listen.  "I'm glad now; we're into something good here," he later tells us.  For her part, Mom looks back at her own family and a grandmother whose bouts of manic depression make her wonder what kind of genetics she has sealed into her son.

The Horse Boy is as eye-opening a film about autism as I've seen, and the family's story is well served via interspersed interviews with autism specialists from Simon Baron-Cohen (that's right: Sacha's cousin), Temple Grandin (herself autistic) and Roy Richard Grinker. Well organized around some suspenseful moments (will the travelers finally find -- and get the help of -- the reindeer people and their shamans?), the film never loses its audience and also never forces us into complicity via melodramatics.

One of the most telling moments, for me, comes when our experts talk about how other societies treat their special people, finding a place for them and a role for them to play in society.  Are these people sick, they ask, or do they simply have a different role to play?  Here, we keep them separate from the bulk of our society; many other countries do not.

Clearly, this couple is not hurting financially, and the realization may occur as you watch the film that most of us could never afford to do anything like this, were our offspring someone like Rowan.  But this is not the main point.  This film should open the door to further research.  As Rupert Isaacson finally tells us, his son was not cured of autism, but his most aggravating and difficult symptoms have now vanished and all three of their lives are so much easier.

How the movie climaxes and then concludes is quietly stunning. The Horse Boy made its DVD debut last month and is available via the usual suspects. Running 93 minutes, it is a more than worth your time.