Tag: Autism

“Professor T” (German) – TV Series Review

A scene from the German TV series “Professor T.” Courtesy of MHz Choice

Fans of European mystery series may find the “Professor T” title familiar. That could be because the Belgian original which began in 2015, has spawned French, Czech, British and German versions. This review covers the third season of the last of those listed.

It seems as if ever since the huge success of Tony Shalhoub’s “Monk,” the idea of crime-solving cops or consultants with major psychological issues has blossomed globally. He wasn’t the first damaged-goods sleuth but probably the most popular, here and abroad. Professor T (Matthias Matschke) teaches criminology and regularly assists Cologne’s homicide unit despite massive emotional problems and a painful history that gradually unfolds during the series. He’s brilliant but somewhere on the Autism Spectrum. That, plus severe OCD and recurring flashbacks and/or psychotic hallucinations, makes our Adrian Monk and lesser-known successors like Eric McCormack’s professorial sleuth in ”Perception” or Tom Payne’s haunted FBI profiler in ”Prodigal Son” seem like poster boys for mental health.

In the first two seasons, we learned that Professor T was traumatized as a child from discovering his father’s apparent suicide. Though always brilliant, other traumas related to crime limited him to the controlled environment of academia and away from real police work for years. Then a former student, Detective Anneliese Deckert (Lucie Heinze), coaxed him out of the hallowed halls to help her team between his lectures. All three seasons consist of four episodes, each with a new murder or murders to solve. As is typical of European fare, the shows are more cerebral and less violent than most of our counterparts. Murders occur almost entirely off-camera, and the stiffs are shown only as needed to understand the causes of their deaths. The tone throughout is mostly serious, though the Prof’s prickly nature provides sprinklings of droll humor. His visions add a strong visceral dimension – especially vivid and unnerving in Season 3. Plus he’s acquired a nemesis trying to destroy what’s left of his sanity. Presumably, every great Sherlock must have a Moriarty.

All the scripts are well-written, with suitably complex scenarios to unravel in a satisfying balance with the personal lives and issues of the principals. Though each episode is primarily a stand-alone challenge, the essential backstories, recurring characters and carryover plot threads make it highly advisable to see the first two seasons before diving into the third. Matschke’s Prof is equally brusque and tactless with students, colleagues and suspects, mostly displaying no emotions in his default facial expression of one who just sucked on a lemon while smelling something malodorous. Even so, he’s a fascinating and

empathy-arousing protagonist.

Season 3 ends with a couple of surprising developments but fear not, fellow closure cravers. We only have to wait a month, or so, for the arrival of the fourth and final season. Stay tuned… or whatever term applies to streaming.

“Professor T: Season 3,” mostly in German with English subtitles, streams on MHz Choice starting Tuesday, Dec. 19.

RATING: 3 out of 4 stars

HERE WE ARE – Review

Shai Avivi as Aharon and Noam Imber as his son Uri, in Nir Bergman’s Israeli/Italian drama HERE WE ARE, one of the films at the 2021 St. Louis Jewish Film Festival. Courtesy of the St. Louis Jewish Film Festival.

The soundtrack to Charlie Chaplin’s THE KID opens the father-son tale HERE WE ARE, award-winning Israeli director Nir Bergman’s heart-warming, insightful drama about a father’s devotion to his son, who is on the autism spectrum. Dad Aharon (Shai Avivi) willingly gave up his successful career as an artist to care for his son Uri (Noam Imber). The two are very close and have built a life of reassuring routine that involves Chaplin’s film about a father and son, trips on the train, bike rides, and pasta stars for lunch. But Uri is a young adult now and Aharon’s ex-wife, Uri’s mother, Tamara (Smadar Wolfman), thinks it is time for him to move to a group home with other young people with autism. Tamara supports father and son financially and, further, a judge agrees with her and there is a court-order that allows her to move her son to the nice facility she has picked out.

Aharon resists, insisting Uri is not ready, but eventually he is resigned to the move. The day of the move, Aharon and Uri take one of their train outings in the morning but when time comes to go home and get ready to move, Uri has a melt down and refuses to get on the train. Aharon makes a snap decision to go on the run with Uri, convinced his son is not ready for the change.

The journey takes them through several locations, a road trip that proves to be an eye-opening experience, revealing strengths and limitations of both father and son, aspects obscured before in their quiet routine. Bergman’s beautifully constructed film uncovers these details in masterful style but the power of the film finally rests on the two wonderful performances at the story’s center. Both Shai Avivi as Aharon and Noam Imber as Uri are outstanding, flawlessly portraying nuances of the characters and their close relationship. Bergman brilliantly uses the Chaplin film as a touchstone, another story of a close father and son fleeing the authorities, evoking it through the recurring music and clips and moments in the story.

The film gives a touching and realistic view of the challenges of autism and Noam Imber’s performance shows us a young man who is his own person, not just his diagnosis. Shai Avivi’s performance as the father is moving, touching, filled with love and commitment to his son, and doing what is best for him.

HERE WE ARE is a wonderful, moving film experience, one well worth seeking out. Director Nir Bergman, and actors Noam Imber and Shai Avivi all won Ophir Awards, Israel’s version of the Oscar, three of the four this Israeli-Italian drama won. This human drama touches our hearts, but also offers an honest portrait and true insights on their experience, until the story reaches its satisfying conclusion.

HERE WE ARE is part of the virtual St. Louis Jewish Film Festival 2021, which starts Sunday, June 6, and runs through Sunday, June 13. Tickets are $14 per film, or an All-Access Pass for all 13 festival films, plus a bonus short, is $95. Tickets and passes give viewing access to all members of a household. All films and discussions can be viewed anytime during the festival, except for BREAKING BREAD, which is only available June 6-8. For more information or to purchase tickets, visit the festival website at stljewishfilmfestival.org.

RATING: 4 out of 4 stars

AUTISM IN LOVE – MLFF 2015

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I continue to be impressed by the programming here at the Mammoth Lakes Film Festival, and AUTISM IN LOVE falls under the ‘impressive’ category.

This incredible documentary follows four bright adults of different ages and circumstances as they discover, long for, manage, or lose love in their lives. This film questions just what love truly means, and how important it is, for all of us.

Lindsay and Dave, who are both autistic, happened to meet at a convention for autism in 2005, and at the time of filming, had been together for 8 years and questioning the subject of marriage. Although the two are both diagnosed as autistic, they are very different in their behaviors and thinking patterns. Lindsay is a creative type, whereas Dave is a scientist. Still, the two manage to compliment each other, and have found a way for their love to work.

Stephen, from St. Paul, MN is highly intelligent, but his social skills are a bit farther removed than the rest of the subjects of the film. He had been married to a lovely woman named Guita for over twenty years, but at the time of the initial shooting, she was living somewhere else and fighting ovarian cancer. She later passed away. Stephen talks to the camera about his love for Guita, and was hopeful that she would get better, but later explained that once she had passed away, he stopped loving her. He had to stop loving her, because she was dead.

The person experiencing the hardest time in the film was Lenny, a twenty-something kid from Los Angeles, CA who has yet to come to terms with his autism. Throughout the film we see Lenny repeatedly tell the interviewer how he longed to just be a normal kid. Lenny wears his heart on his sleeve, and his struggle is rather difficult to watch. Not only is he uncomfortable with himself, but he is convinced that the only way that he will get a girlfriend is if he has money, a job, and a car. Towards the end of the film Lenny finally does get a job, but it doesn’t really help much on his quest for happiness and self-acceptance.

Director Matt Fuller does an incredible job of getting these amazing people to open up on camera, and I later found out that he actually projected his face onto a mirror in front of the lens so that everyone would know where to look. What he captured is a humane, heart filled tale of universal love and heartache. This film is a journey for the soul.

It was reported after the film that PBS saw the film at the Tribeca Film Festival, and has now bought the rights. AUTISM IN LOVE should be aired or screened widely (hopefully) sometime soon. If you get the chance to see this film, do it!

OVERALL RATING : 5 out of 5 stars

FOR MORE INFO: www.autisminlove.com

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Review: THE HORSE BOY

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Roughly one out of every ninety children are born with autism. Approximately one percent of children in the United States, between the ages of 3 and 17, have an autism spectrum disorder. Between 1-1.5 million Americans live with an autism spectrum disorder. These are staggering statistics, especially considering such a prevalent disorder receives less that 5% of private research funding of other less common disorders and diseases.

My intention for sharing these statistics is not to condemn anyone, but merely to point out the vastness of the population living with some form of autism. This is a disorder that is still relatively unknown to us in terms of it’s cause and ultimately it’s place within our society and humanity. Many cling to the idea that autism is strictly a bad thing, a disease, but many others remain open to the possibility that autism isn’t a disease so much as a different way of seeing the world that neuro-typical people do not yet fully understand.

THE HORSE BOY is an amazing documentary about that very differentiation. The film follows 4-year old Rowan Isaacson and his parents as they travel from the United States to Mongolia, seeking a cure for Rowan’s autism. Rowan’s father Rupert, a horse trainer by trade, realized one day that Rowan has an uncanny connection and way with animals, especially with horses. Rupert decides he wants to use this connection and take his family to the one place that horse-riding was born, which also happens to be the home of what are considered to be the most powerful Shamans in the world.

The Isaacson’s experience of raising a child with autism, with symptoms varying from tantrums to a complete resistance to potty train, has taken an emotional toll on their lives. Rupert feels that this adventure to Mongolia, undertaken in part by way of lengthy horse-back riding, will reveal some form of healing for Rowan and themselves. Rupert’s wife Kristin is a bit more skeptical of the outcome, but remains open to the possibilities and they both ultimately find themselves amazed at the results.

Without venturing into excessive detail of Rowan’s condition, the simple truth is that at his his rate of development, he would have difficulty living a “normal” life on his own in society. This, above all else, is what frightens Rowan’s parents and pushes them to follow this path of horses and Shamanic healing. The journey has it’s ups and downs. The film, directed, photographed and edited by first-timer Michel O. Scott, vividly captures both the intense joy and exhausting pain that they endure along the way.

THE HORSE BOY harnesses moments of intimacy with Rowan, both with his father and moments by himself that reveal a unique and fascinating human being in the process of discovering himself and the world around him. Rowan overcomes nearly all of the negative, debilitating effects of autism but also maintains and thrives on the positive aspects of seeing the world from a different perspective through autism. Whether this is the direct result of the Shamanic healing, Rupert and Kristin differ slightly in their opinions, but what they agree on is that the experience as a whole has been a blessing and they are grateful, regardless of the causation of his progress.

The film takes this very engaging and emotional story of human triumph and peppers it lightly with interview clips from various experts, including Dr. Simon Baron-Cohen, anthropologist and researcher Roy Richard Gringer and Dr. Temple Grandin, who herself lives with autism. These scenes are minimal, but offer an enlightening educational support to the story as it unfolds. Footage shot by Michel Scott depicts Rowan’s unbelievable connection to animals as well as the immense beauty of the remote regions of Mongolia, which give an epic cinematic feel to the Isaacson’s jounrey.

Original music in THE HORSE BOY was composed by Lili Haydyn and Kim Carroll and, while pleasant enough, felt a tad too New Age. This was a concern because, while the subject matter may seem “New Age” on the surface, is really more about a father’s determined journey to make a better life for his son than it was a testament to any specific form of alternative or spiritual method of healing. Here is a man, a father so in love with his child that, no matter what the cost or outcome, was willing to leave no stone unturned in seeking the best life possible for his son and this in turn is what makes THE HORSE BOY a fantastic must-see documentary!

S.L.I.F.F. Review: ‘Ben X’

Travis:

The majority of us can only imagine blindly what it must be like to live every day of your life with autism. Unfortunately, there are many of us in the world who choose not to consider this question and instead choose to take the “easy” path of casting those who seem “different” out of our society of acceptance.

‘Ben X’ is directed by  Nic Balthazar. It tells the story of Ben, a teenager with a specific form of autism known as Asperger’s Syndrome. Ben spends much of his free time playing an online computer fantasy game called ArchLord where he feels at home. Ben feels like a hero when he plays his game and it allows for him to live a sort of  second, more fulfilling life. Unfortunately, when Ben is not in the comfort of his home he finds himself repeatedly picked on and bullied. The other students at school harass and terrorize him for “being” different and Ben’s inability to interact with them socially makes it difficult for him to peacefully defend himself.

The thing that no one else realizes, including his distressed mother, is that Ben yearns to live a normal life. Not necessarily one without his autism, but one where he’s not abused on a daily basis. Ben has been carrying on a meaningful relationship with a fellow gamer called Scarlite, with whom he plays ArchLord with. The two of them live out their relationship online through their characters, until Scarlite decides she wants to meet Ben in person. When they do finally meet, Ben cannot force himself to seal the deal and he risks losing her forever. In addition, Ben’s curiosity about death and suicide begin to take a stronger hold on his life, tempting him with a fail-safe solution to his life of peer-induced misery. Ben will ultimately make a powerful decision about his life that will affect everyone in his life.

‘Ben X’ takes the audience on a stomach-churning tour of his life. Balthazar manages to reinforce the unsettling story with unstable camera techniques and jarring motion to keep the audience from getting too comfortable. Watching the film is an experience of being an uneasy witness and a moth drawn to light all at once. Throughout the film, Ben imagines himself as his hero character from ArchLord as a way to help him cope with the stress of his life and Balthazar utilizes the CG special FX  with great effectiveness  in this way. ‘Ben X’ is an amazing film with a superb story and a powerful message about the state of our teenage culture towards a growing population with autism. This is a film that is beneficial to all, but  should resonate strongly with the teenage crowd and hopefully impact them in a positive way. I strongly suggest this film to everyone!

[Overall: 4.5 stars out of 5]

Festival Screening Date: Saturday, November 22 @ 12:15pm (Frontenac)