Coming to PBS’s POV for an encore screening tonight, Monday, August 11: NEUROTYPICAL
Adam Larsen’s insider look at life with autism had its world premiere at the Thessaloniki Doc fest in 2011. The film went on to screen at DOXA and Rooftop Films, among others, and to debut on POV last Summer.
As signaled by its title, a term autistic people use to refer to the non-autistic, Larsen’s film flips the conventional approach to autism in documentary projects by taking the autistic’s point of view. More than providing profiles of individuals on the autistic spectrum, Larsen reflects their perspectives on making sense of and finding strategies to operate within the often perplexing “normal” world, where people bizarrely like to blather on about themselves, the weather, or celebrity gossip for no good reason. Spotlighting a range of subjects, from a four-year-old who cannot communicate clearly, to teenagers and adults who have developed a range of systems – some humorous, others remarkably complex – to assist them in interacting with what often feels like another species, the film offers a surprising and provocative challenge to a pathological model of autism that often sees medication as the only option.
what (not) to doc 