Reviewed by Elliot V. Kotek
(from the 2009 Sundance Film Festival)

Directed by: Michel Orion Scott
Starring: Rupert Isaacson, Kristin Neff, Rowan Isaacson, Stephen Edelson, Simon Baron-Cohen, Temple Grandin

There's been a fair amount of attention on autism lately. Autism: the Musical took the festival world by storm a couple of years ago, and Jenny McCarthy and Jim Carrey have done their best over these past 12 months to address the previous deficit of attention to the genetic disorder that afflicts so many and seems so previously misunderstood. Likewise, Mongolia has featured in the recent Oscar-nominated feature Mongol and featured also in the Belic brothers' Oscar-nominated documentary Genghis Blues, now celebrating its 10-year anniversary since opening at this very festival. The common ground for these two seemingly unrelated observations is Over the Hills and Far Away.

Over the Hills starts in India. Kristin (a psychologist) and Rupert (a journalist) track their trek from their romantic rendezvous to becoming parents of an autistic child (Rowan), and their following search for understanding and for a miracle that might help their little boy. That search for a miracle meandered from books, tantrums and analysis to a horseback adventure across Mongolia - to its sacred mountains and healing bodies of water - to seek the counsel of a variety of shamans.

The fact the filmmakers question whether they've continued to act in the best interests of their child is honest and heartwarming, and the ceremonial flagellations (emotional and physical) the family is willing to endure on-camera in their quest to quell their questions has a uniting effect - for the audience as well as the family; somehow we are transported into their sacrifices. The Isaacsons don't pretend that what they are doing is normal or usual, or even that it makes sense, but just that it is something; it is something in which hope can exist, even if only long enough to serve as an experiment.

The family shares its preconceptions, misconceptions, misgivings and understandings as they adopt and abandon adult affectations, finally freeing themselves to listen and respond to the unpredictable nature of the autistic spirit and to the unpredictable and magical nature of nature itself. As they open themselves up to other cultures, their film highlights the factors and conditioning imposed by western societies as to what should be considered right and wrong, normal and abnormal. Consequently, Over the Hills and Far Away is an affirmation that it is only by indulging in other cultures that we can even begin to question ours - and that, in the end, if we can't begin to accept and love those in our lives for who they are and how they're great, then our eyes will never fully be open and suffering never truly be eased.

It would be remiss to leave out mentions for the way in which this doc comes together. The editing by Rita K. Sanders is seamless, and the music (featuring recording artists Joanna Newsom and Peter Broderick, as well as original pieces by Lili Haydn and Kim Carroll) is devastatingly beautiful.

In its ultimate effect, this is not a movie about autism. This is a movie about a family who learns to overcome its culture's conditioning, and whose members, in the process, reach a new level of respect, admiration and love for each other, symbolized by how each accepts the challenge to change (even if just a little) to accommodate the others in their lives. -MPM

For more information about the film and the organization, and other efforts being pursued by the filmmakers and family, go to http://www.horseboyfoundation.org/.

Photos courtesy of the Sundance Film Festival.

Over the Hills and Far Away is now screening at the 2009 Sarasota Film Festival
Friday April 3, 7:30pm
Saturday April 4, 4pm