Imagination

   I'll admit it, I didn't come to this film with high hopes. I had seen Netflix reviewers trash it again and again, but I hoped that it would at least be original. By the middle, when the talking fruits showed up, I was waiting for the one hour ten minutes to end.

   By the credits, I was wondering how such a horrific train wreck ever came into existence. There's a vague possibility that this could have been a good, albeit strange, film. What went wrong? As it turns out, almost everything.

    The plot (if you can call it that) follows two prepubescent girls named Anna and Sarah through their joined imaginary realities. Their parents are struggling -- Sarah is nearly blind, and Anna has Asperger's Syndrome, a form of autism. As their psychiatrist attempts to understand their increasingly bizarre fantasies, we watch dream-like sequences done through stop-motion animation and special effects. When tragedy strikes, the girls retreat further into their imaginations, causing the psychiatrist to wonder what the visions mean.

    That's pretty much the sum of the story, avoiding spoilers. It actually was an interesting idea, visualizing two introverted girls' secret world. The result, however, is horrendous. First of all the acting is pathetic -- it's hard to watch. As you watch the actors' pitiable attempts to be "emotional," you wonder how they could have possibly set themselves up for this kind of humiliation.

   It feels like the director went out to a local park, watched people for a while, and chose a few, asking them to be in a movie. They agreed, despite their complete lack of dramatic skills. The two girl's performances are understandable -- they're still young, after all. However, watching the adults, especially the psychiatrist, desperately trying to play their roles leaves you shaking your head in horror.

     The other problem with Imagination is that Anna's "Asperger's Syndrome" and Sarah's blindness are pointless, more or less just there to rationalize bizarre dream sequences. What may have helped this film is to explain why the girls "live in a world all their own." Anna, we are told again and again, "can't socialize," but we rarely see her interact with anyone in the film.

   It would have been interesting -- more interesting, perhaps, than the weird trip scenes -- to try to explain Sarah and Anna's need to go into their own realities. Ben X did this efficiently. We understood why the main character, Ben, became obsessed with the virtual world and tuned out of real life. Imagination, however, is obviously a miserable attempt to play with hallucinogenic effects and claymation, without a glimmer of character development or logic to make sense of it.

    There is one good quality, however. Even though the filmmakers got so many other things wrong, their skills at claymation are apparent. One scene, in particular, is darkly creative and weird, in a good way. In this case, the bizarre imagery actually attracted my attention. It makes you kind of wish they had kicked out the actors and let the clay figures take center stage.

    All in all, I wouldn't recommend this movie to practically anyone, unless they are especially fond of weird for weird's sake. Do not watch this looking for a realistic or informative view of Asperger's -- you won't find it here. If you want something unusual, watch The Fall -- in fact, watch practically anything else. Just stay far away from this bizarre, pointless mess of a movie.

 

 

Ben X

Ben X, Belgian director Nic Balthazar's film debut, is an ambitious drama exploring the autistic mind and how far harassment can go before the victim loses control.

  At the beginning, we are introduced to Ben (superbly played by Greg Timmermans), a teenage boy with Asperger's Syndrome who lives with his well-meaning mother and younger brother. Ben spends all his free time playing Archlord, a fantasy role-playing game where he becomes Ben X and plays alongside Scarlitte, a teenage girl who is impressed by his gaming skills. The game gives him a sense of purpose in a world that becomes increasingly out of control.

 Ben's life at school, quite simply, is hell. He is relentlessly tormented by two repugnant teenage boys. His teachers try to help him but are ineffectual. The situation worsens when an embarrassing prank perpetrated on him is videotaped and posted all over the internet.

   Feeling that he has no where to turn, he hides what happened from his family and teachers and becomes increasingly disturbed and suicidal. Finally, close to breaking point, Ben decides to meet with Scarlitte, who is interested in visiting him in real life. Together with Scarlitte, his divorced father, and his desperate mother, he comes up with a bizarre plan to get back at his tormenters.

    I waited a long time for this movie, and as it generally is in this case, was disappointed. Which isn't to say that Ben X is a bad film. On the contrary, it has many good qualities. The main thing that struck me was that this is one of the first times a character on the autistic spectrum takes center stage and is treated as a person, not a plot device. Often, the character with autism is used to evoke feelings from the other people in the movie or to teach them what is really important in life.

   This film, without avoiding the family's perception of the situation, concentrates on Ben and his reactions to what's happening around him. Secondly, the acting in Ben X is top-notch, especially from Greg Timmermans and Marijke Pinoy, as Ben's mother. Greg Timmermans has excellent facial expressions and mannerisms, and in his and the directors hands, the main character becomes a real person.

    Many scenes and situations in Ben X, however, are very melodramatic and over-the-top, but the ending is its greatest weakness. Alternately bizarre and unrealistic, it detracts from an otherwise good movie. The director seems to think that neatly tying things up is more important than realism, and it shows.

   The film builds up a great deal of suspense and a foreboding that something terrible will happen, but seems to wimp out toward the end. I don't enjoy depressing endings, but I felt that the conclusion wasn't believable at all. I am bound to cut this film some slack, because there are so few movies about high-functioning autism and because I waited a long time to watch it. Although I think it was ultimately disappointing, it also did many things right and tried to do what most directors haven't done effectively before.

 

Mozart and the Whale

In many books and movies dealing with autism and Asperger's, a related disorder, a scene is added where a person, generally a psychiatrist, explains the situation to another character.

This is most likely not added to aid character or plot development. Probably this part is there to help people who are not in the know about it, in other words, people who don't get what these conditions are, so they'll understand the story better.

In Mozart and the Whale, the main character, Donald (Josh Hartnett), pauses in the beginning to talk about life with Asperger's. One might think these would be interesting, and a good departure from the "shrink explains" cliche, but actually it becomes rather irksome.

Judging from this movie, people on the autistic spectrum like nothing more than to sit around and discuss their conditions. Mozart and the Whale is a romantic drama based on the memoir of the same title, which I've never read. The main characters, Donald and Isabella (Radha Mitchell) have Asperger's Syndrome and meet during a support group meeting. The film chronicles how their relationship begins and the difficulties of trying to coexist in a romantic situation on the autism spectrum.

    Well, I'm guessing some people might have no clue what Asperger's is. I suppose, though, by telling you, I will be making the same mistake the film did and boring people who already understand it. I guess the difference was that Donald was discussing this with fellow Aspergians who were already in a support group and probably didn't need instruction.

   Then again, maybe you don't either. In that case, skip the following paragraphs and cut to the chase. Asperger's, in short, is a difference in the mind that cause difficulties relating to people, and in some cases, uncommon reactions to certain stimuli. It's related to a more commonly known condition, autism, but tends to be milder. People with Asperger's have problems with social skills, have certain interests they dwell on, and don't easily "change gears."

   Some of them are introverted, and others try to relate but come off as sort of odd. Introversion, possibly, could be a reaction to being misunderstood. Generally they are gifted and grow up to live more independently than people who are autistic. In the beginning of  Mozart and the Whale, Donald meets Isabella, a new addition to the support group. Isabella is a bright, excitable, and socially challenged artist who immediately tells fellow group members about being raped as a teenager.

   Obviously she is angered when a severely autistic woman displays a grossly inappropriate reaction and begins laughing, although she doesn't understand the woman's problems or her own flawed behavior. Infuriated, she is stopped from leaving by Donald, who convinces her to keep going to meetings. One of the group members has a nervous crush on Isabella, but she is more interested in Donald. Soon, she invites him to a costume party, which he doesn't arrive for.

   She comes and knocks on his door dressed as Mozart, and he joins her to walk with her, him in a whale costume (hence the title). They spend time together, and even a near-breakdown from stimulus overload at the carnival doesn't ruin the night. Before departing, they have their first kiss. After their bond deepens and they move in with each other, they start having problems in their relationship. Several times they leave each other but get back together.

   However, problems arise when Isabella feels that Donald is unaccepting and is trying to"'normalize" them for the outside world, and she and Donald break up. The two of them feel lost without each other and Isabella becomes suicidal, but they're afraid to get back together. Mozart and the Whale is a okay movie, although at times it becomes irritating, especially at the beginning.

   When we are first introduced to the main characters, the director seems to be afraid we'll forget the condition of the group members, so we're constantly hit atop the head with "autistic" symptoms. The characters mention their disorder just about every five minutes, and their "interests," such as mathematics or art, seem so hackneyed that it's difficult to relate to many of them.

    On the plus side, the movie is made so that each person, in many ways, is vastly different from the others. Although they share Asperger's, their general personalities and mannerisms are their own, though at times overdone. Actually, Donald and Isabella are not very alike, although they both lack proper social skills.

    All in all, Mozart and the Whale seems like more of a tool to explain Asperger's than a proper story. I don't have the book to judge from, but the film is well-intentioned but plods heavily at times. It's definitely not the worst view of the autistic spectrum, but it's far from the best.

Mary & Max

   Mary & Max, which, as you might have guessed from the trailer, is not for kids, is a grim, bleakly animated affair, and is allowed by the director the smallest rays of sunshine. It is the story of 352-pound Jewish New Yorker Max Jerry Horowitz and a lonely eight-year-old named Mary Daisy Dinkle, who lives with her alcoholic shoplifting mother and taxidermist father (whose middle name, "Norman," and hobby of stuffing birds may be an oblique reference to Psycho) in 1976 Australia.

   A male chicken named Ethel is young Mary's only friend, while Max lives with his pets, including an ever-dying line of fish, in a cheap apartment. Max doesn't know it, but he has Asperger's, a neurological, autism-like condition which impairs social interaction. It is quite a coincidence that Max and Mary meet.

    She picks his name from a phone book and decides to ask him where babies come from in America. She has been informed by her deceased granddad that Australians find them in beer glasses. Another name, and she could have picked a pedophile, who would have been very glad to hear from her, but for different reasons. (No, this is not a story about pedophilia.)

    Max answers, in his own eccentric and slightly unrealistic way, and an unusual friendship begins, despite interference from Mary's mother, who, frankly, has a reasonable motive to be suspicious of her child's strange new pen pal. This all leads to a conclusion that made me shed a tear for the first time in an animated movie since some of Pixar's new releases.

    Mary & Max's world is populated by strange claymation characters -- a Greek stutterer, an agoraphobic amputee, and a blind widow -- who are even stranger than they sound. The animation is detailed, gratuitously weird, and frankly, a little hard to take, but the story makes up for it.

   . The bitter-sweetness of the film makes it hard not to cry a little, think a little, and lament for the loneliness that hounds some people throughout their lives. Philip Seymour Hoffman does not sound like Philip Seymour Hoffman as Max and Toni Collette is good as the adult Mary. Mary & Max is not without humor and definitely worth a watch.