Very important documentary debuts -- Brian Knappenberger's THE INTERNET'S OWN BOY

Two of the year's best documentaries have hit theaters in as many weeks. Following Code Black's foray into health care and emergency rooms, we now have upon us the story of how our government went after one of our most promising geniuses of modern technology, the Internet and the progressive movement -- a young fellow named Aaron Swartz, who, when threatened hard enough with prison and heavy monetary fines, and because he was, I believe a kind of genius with all the baggage, much of it heavy and difficult, that this state often entails, committed suicide rather than face an incarceration that probably would have sent him over the brink, if and when he found himself behind bars.

This is another shameful episode in our current administration's very checkered history, in which, as someone in the movie points out, the powers that be would rather go after whistle blowers attempting to right current wrongs (a good case can be made for Swartz's being exactly that) rather than doing the more difficult work of going after the criminal banks and Wall Street businesses that brought upon this country an economic crisis so vast and horrendous to the middle and lower economic classes that we may never surmount it.

THE INTERNET'S OWN BOY: The Story of Aaron Swartz, written and directed by Brian Knappenberger (shown above) tends, I suppose, toward hagiography because so many of the people involved here knew, loved and respected young Swartz so immensely. After you see this fine documentary, I suspect that you will, too.

I knew very little about this fellow, shown above and below, when I sat down to watch the documentary. In fact, though I had heard his name bandied about over the past few years, it was not until his suicide that I paid much attention. But I am so grateful to Knappenberger and his crew for allowing me to enter Swartz's world and better understand who he was and some of the amazing things he had accomplished by the time of his death (he was only 26).

Knappenberger gives us Aaron's history -- how he was reading well at three years old, and growing up with computer, programming, email and all the rest. Though we get a clear sense of how bright, quick and to-the-point the young man was, we don't really see much of his weak points or how difficult he probably could be at times. This may be unavoidable in a documentary that aims, as much as anything else, to be a memorial to the man. Often brilliantly done, it moves fast (even given its 105-minute running time) with almost no flab attached. Everything we see and hear merits our attention.

We're able to grow and learn along with Aaron, as he becomes the better known wunderkind of adolescence and young manhood. We meet his brothers and parents, and some of the famous folk who helped guide him, and even a couple of the young women to whom he grew attached. Early on, he dedicated himself and his skills to progressive politics, uncovering massive privacy violations in our court documents, so that the courts had to change their policy.

When he learned how difficult and costly it could be to obtain these legal documents that were supposedly available to people, he set about making these documents available free, first incurring the wrath of those who profited by charging for them, and then the government agencies like the FBI (which eventually dropped the case).

When he set up his own computer to download (or maybe it's upload: I'm not that tech-savvy) files from MIT, he was caught, and the government went after him again, this time more forcibly. Yet even under this kind of duress and stress, Swartz continued to rally around progressive causes, most particularly the fight to stop SOPA (the Stop Online Piracy Act, which, if pushed through as law, might have halted freedom of the Internet in a single swoop). Thought to be unstoppable, SOPA was something Aaron organized to fight. And he won.

As the evidence grows of how our government effectively bullied Swartz into suicide, the documentary will make you increasingly angry and sorrowful to see destroyed one of the most creative minds of the younger generation -- a mind and body bent on helping our country and its citizens. Overall, though, this is a wondrous, rich, often funny history of a very special person. What a character Aaron was, and how many brilliant ideas did he have! Mr. Knappenberger has indeed given "the Internet's own boy" a fitting memorial.

The movie -- from FilmBuff and Participant Media -- opens in theaters this Thursday, June 26, in Los Angeles at the Sundance Cinemas, West Hollywood. The following day, Friday, June 27, it will hit New York City (at the IFC Center) and another dozen locations, and will reach another seven cities in the weeks to come. You can see all currently scheduled cities and theaters by clicking here and scrolling down the page. On VOD, you can screen it from your couch starting Friday, June 27, via Vimeo On Demand, iTunes, Amazon Instant Video, Google Play, Movies On Demand, VUDU, X-Box Video and Sony Entertainment Network.

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.