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10.09.2010

A MOTHER'S COURAGE - TALKING BACK TO AUTISM

so i saw this movie the other day at the viff. since it's a documentary, the question is whether or not it was done tastefully/well or how well it showed both sides of the story.

well, of course it was done tastefully. the movie is narrated by kate winslet, and takes place in iceland for a bit, but is predominantly shot in the united states. the primary subjects of the documentary are margret, and her son keli, who undoubtedly has hardcore, low functioning autism. margret is on the search for a highly effective treatment method.

her son keli, is severely autistic, non-verbal, very often he flails his arms about and he often tries to offset his sensory overload by finding flowers or tree branches and waving them in his face. as with many autistic parents, margret and her husband are clueless as to what he's thinking or feeling.

along the way, margret talks to many people and encounters a lot of autistic kids. among the people interviewed are temple grandin, vernon smith and soma mukhopadhyay , as well as several parents, therapists and PhD holding neurologists and psychologists.

man, some of these kids are surreal. one of these kids is 11 years old, non-verbal, and to everyone's surprise, he "likes stocks" have you ever heard of an 11 year old kid who is interested in stocks to the point where he can make 23% in a week-long contest?

this film was extremely well done, camera work was great, music was from bjork and sigur ros, and the film covers autism as well as it possibly can be covered in 90 minutes. the movie was as fair as it needed to be both sides (the idea that vaccines cause autism is discarded as bullshit, and rightfully so).
if you've ever been around autism before (as i did in grade 6/7, many kids at my school had some form of autism) then you must see this movie.

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