the 941

This past weekend kicks off the beginning of the Halloween festivities for me. I was witness to the coming zombie-pocalypse with friends during a screening of Zombieland. I have the Sarasota Zombie Pub Crawl coming up this Saturday and the CL Best of Party on Friday the 23rd. More coming the end of the month also, but recently I got to visit a troubled teen with autism in the indie film called BenX.

Ben is different from your typical teenager. His life is a universe unto itself, where he plays his favorite online computer game Archlord avidly; trying hard to train himself for the real world he lives in. The harsh world of a technical school is for him a daily kind of hell. As the horror of being a daily subject to bullying grows, Ben devises a plan.

BenX is an amazing and touching film about a young man with Autism (or rather, the misunderstanding that others display toward people with this disability). I had multiple reasons to see this film, I like the idea of the director using the community of gaming to illustrate one’s need to escape the real world and enter their own. It was also recommended by my girlfriend, Jen, who is kind of an indie film expert and I call her my film agent. She of course, will deny working in that aspect at all other than to make certain recommendations.

It is based on the novel Nothing Was All He Said by Nic Balthazar, who also directed the film. The novel was inspired by the true story of an autistic boy who committed suicide because of bullying. Ben is played by Greg Timmermans who is an absolute newcomer to the screen. He is also a revelation in this starring role. BenX is the first feature film of this young theatrical actor, while Marike Pinoy as his distressed, frustrated mother is also dead on casting.

Ben is mainstreamed in regular school, tormented by the usual bullies, taught by clueless teachers, “helped” by incompetent psychologists, and cared for by a loving, but totally exasperated, mother. Ben is totally in touch with the real world around him, but can only relate and react to this real world through the eyes of his game character that he plays incessantly. Inevitably, life reaches a crisis point, mainly due to the bullies, and he rationalizes he has to end this game — both real life and online are synonymous to him — and start a new one. How Ben does this end-game, and his choice of a new game, are what this story is really all about. The story is told from Ben’s perspective, interspersed with narrative interludes from his mother, divorced father, teachers, psychologists, etc.

I was touched by this film and I would give it a standing ovation if not for watching it at home. This film offered a rare glimpse into the life of someone who has an amazing mind trapped in a body that cannot express it. I am not going to sugar-coat things; this film can be depressing (on the scale with movies like Requiem for a Dream) but have courage to stick until the end because it’s definitely worth it. There is a rumor of an American adaptation but I sincerely hope not: The Dutch version creates a mood that would be ruined by an American attempt. You don’t have to be a gamer or know a lot about gaming to understand this movie either. Share and enjoy.

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