Director-cinematographer Michel Orion Scott tracks an autistic Texas boy to Outer Mongolia: his open-minded parents wonder if shamans on the steppes might heal their Rowan. Or at least get him to stop pooping his pants. “The Horse Boy” is narrated by Rowan’s long-haired dad Rupert, a former horse trainer turned advocate for indigenous peoples’ land rights. Rowan’s mom Kristin is an associate professor in the Department of Educational Psychology at the University of Texas. “Self-compassion” is her research specialty. Talking heads include the director of the Autism Research Centre at Cambridge University; an anthropologist who penned “Unstrange Minds” about his autistic daughter (his grandfather founded the University of Chicago’s psychiatry department) and Dr. Temple Grandin, the autistic author of “Animals in Translation: Using the Mysteries of Autism to Decode Animal Behavior.” “The Horse Boy” documents the hell Rowan endures with his endless tantrums. It’s hell too for his helpless parents. But a horse calms him down. This inspires a 2007 trip to seek out traditional healers among reindeer herders. One divines a negative energy emanating from Kristin’s late, mentally ill grandmother. This is a home video of a family traveling far for therapy on a hunch. You cannot help but cheer, if not chant, for a sunny outcome. Yet I have never seen a documentary or drama shot in Mongolia that offered such overcast skies and lackluster vistas. 93m. (Bill Stamets)
Ray Pride is Newcity’s film critic and a contributing editor to Filmmaker magazine.
His multimedia history of Chicago “Ghost Signs” will be published soon. Previews of the project are on Twitter and on Instagram as Ghost Signs Chicago. More photography on Instagram.
Seeing The Elephant: A Review Of Babylon The boisterous, brawling yet melancholy "Babylon," is a variation on film history, but more drawing for drama. It's gaudy and mean, celebratory and sorrowful.
Heart: A Review of Soul The real world is soulful, too, in Pixar's bountiful life of the mind.
Uncanny Ally: A Review Of M3GAN "M3GAN" sells itself in its first handful of seconds in how it introduces the handiwork of roboticist Gemma (Allison Williams, "Get Out") and her present product, PurrPetual Petz from Funki.
Director-cinematographer Michel Orion Scott tracks an autistic Texas boy to Outer Mongolia: his open-minded parents wonder if shamans on the steppes might heal their Rowan. Or at least get him to stop pooping his pants. “The Horse Boy” is narrated by Rowan’s long-haired dad Rupert, a former horse trainer turned advocate for indigenous peoples’ land rights. Rowan’s mom Kristin is an associate professor in the Department of Educational Psychology at the University of Texas. “Self-compassion” is her research specialty. Talking heads include the director of the Autism Research Centre at Cambridge University; an anthropologist who penned “Unstrange Minds” about his autistic daughter (his grandfather founded the University of Chicago’s psychiatry department) and Dr. Temple Grandin, the autistic author of “Animals in Translation: Using the Mysteries of Autism to Decode Animal Behavior.” “The Horse Boy” documents the hell Rowan endures with his endless tantrums. It’s hell too for his helpless parents. But a horse calms him down. This inspires a 2007 trip to seek out traditional healers among reindeer herders. One divines a negative energy emanating from Kristin’s late, mentally ill grandmother. This is a home video of a family traveling far for therapy on a hunch. You cannot help but cheer, if not chant, for a sunny outcome. Yet I have never seen a documentary or drama shot in Mongolia that offered such overcast skies and lackluster vistas. 93m. (Bill Stamets)
