{"id":20040,"date":"2016-07-15T00:16:51","date_gmt":"2016-07-15T07:16:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/?p=20040"},"modified":"2016-07-13T16:06:53","modified_gmt":"2016-07-13T23:06:53","slug":"learning-to-live-with-autism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/2016\/07\/15\/learning-to-live-with-autism\/","title":{"rendered":"Learning to live with autism"},"content":{"rendered":"

Owen Suskind is the subject of the documentary Life, Animated<\/em>. (photo from A&E Indiefilms)<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Children\u2019s films \u2013 especially the animated variety \u2013 always make sure to highlight the moral of the story. But very few children embraced those lessons as deeply and thoughtfully as Owen Suskind.<\/p>\n

Now in his mid-20s, Owen had a normal East Coast childhood until he suddenly stopped speaking when he was 3. His parents, Ron and Cornelia, tried every strategy and tactic to treat Owen\u2019s autism, but he remained uncommunicative and seemingly unreachable.<\/p>\n

Ron Suskind, the bestselling author of such nonfiction books as The Price of Loyalty: George W. Bush, the White House and the Education of Paul O\u2019Neill<\/em>, relates in the beautifully crafted and irresistibly touching documentary Life, Animated<\/em> that he was stunned one day to hear Owen repeat a snippet of dialogue while watching a Disney animated movie.<\/p>\n

It took a few years, however, to figure out that Owen was using the characters, behavioral cues and ethical directives of Disney films to make sense of and deal with his own experiences. Benefiting from the dedicated attention of his mother and various tutors, Owen regained the ability to speak, interact with other people and thrive.<\/p>\n

Adapted from Suskind\u2019s 2014 book, Life, Animated: A Story of Sidekicks, Heroes and Autism<\/em>, the documentary will see four screenings at Vancity Theatre Aug. 5-11 (viff.org). It isn\u2019t a stretch to predict that it will be a strong contender for the year-end shortlist for the Academy Award for documentary feature.<\/p>\n

Unexpectedly, when Ron, Cornelia and Roger Ross Williams \u2013 the first African-American director to win an Oscar, for the documentary short Music by Prudence<\/em> \u2013 sat down for an interview on a Sunday morning in early May, before they presented Life, Animated<\/em> at the San Francisco International Film Festival, the conversation centred on Owen\u2019s bar mitzvah.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen he was about 11,\u201d Cornelia recalled, \u201chis therapist gave me a book, which no one\u2019s ever heard of, called God and the Autism Connection<\/em>. It talks about how so many, many of these kids operate on a different emotional plane.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe always had been spiritual,\u201d Ron added. \u201cIn some ways, he preserved sort of a notion of God being there within reach that kids have but, even as he grew in sophistication, he didn\u2019t give that up. He always had this way in which he was not encumbered by the usual doubts or hesitations that become the common currency of most people\u2019s lives as they grow.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ron and Cornelia (who is Catholic and did not convert) belonged to a Reconstructionist synagogue in Bethesda, Md. Owen\u2019s bar mitzvah tutor was Miriam Eisenstadt, whose mother was the first woman to be bat mitzvahed in the United States and whose grandfather was the founder of Reconstructionism, Mordecai Kaplan.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe question was how would we get him up to the bimah and have him do what\u2019s needed,\u201d Ron said. \u201cFirst, we had a problem where we didn\u2019t know what movies to go to, because he really didn\u2019t have much of a taste for The Prince of Egypt<\/em>. It just didn\u2019t work for him.\u201d<\/p>\n

So, Ron switched from one Exodus story to another, pointing Owen to An American Tale: Fievel Goes West<\/em>. \u201cBasically, it\u2019s Eastern European Jews as mice,\u201d Ron said.<\/p>\n

At the same time, Owen embraced the part of his parashah that discussed the commandments a person should follow.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s very rule-oriented,\u201d Cornelia explained. \u201cHe\u2019s better now but he used to be very black and white, and rules are very important.\u201d<\/p>\n

On the bimah, Owen honed in on one rule in particular: never put a block in front of a blind person.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe talked about that in his speech, the notion of special, and he broadened it,\u201d Ron said. \u201cHe had the designation of \u2018he\u2019s a special kid.\u2019 He said, \u2018But I think God wants us to see everyone as special.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Williams said Life, Animated<\/em> included a poignant flashback scene from Owen\u2019s bar mitzvah until it was removed from one of the last cuts. Indeed, the director goes so far back with the Suskinds that he arranged for the editing of Owen\u2019s bar mitzvah video. Consequently, it\u2019s ironic and moving to see that the most savvy film buff in Life, Animated<\/em> is Owen, who discerns and delineates the positive themes of Disney films to other autistic children and young adults.<\/p>\n

At the same time that it recounts Owen\u2019s childhood journey, the documentary follows his current path to living independently in a residential community with support.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can almost feel his desire \u2013 I think it\u2019s deep in all of us \u2013 to arrive at a place of faith, of constancy, of a sense of a universe that is coherent, and a place of love and possibility,\u201d Ron said. \u201cHe was searching for that on his own. He was often using the best of Disney to help support that architecture, which actually is a pretty good pick, if you think about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Michael Fox<\/strong> is a writer and film critic living in San Francisco.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Owen Suskind is the subject of the documentary Life, Animated. (photo from A&E Indiefilms) Children\u2019s films \u2013 especially the animated variety \u2013 always make sure to highlight the moral of the story. But very few children embraced those lessons as deeply and thoughtfully as Owen Suskind. Now in his mid-20s, Owen had a normal East […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":19950,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[787],"tags":[3680,6109,6108],"class_list":["post-20040","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tv-film","tag-autism","tag-disney","tag-suskind"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20040","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20040"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20040\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19950"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20040"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20040"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20040"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}