Imagination [Import]

Unfortunately I was disappointed in both the time and the money invested in this film. The topic of autism and Asperger's Syndrome are indeed fascinating. Not so rare as implied in the advertising language for the film. There is much that could be done to develop this topic realistically between twin sister's, with only one manifesting the condition.

I was initially intrigued, especially with their play and art. However, overall the movie felt very unrealistic. At times instead of being present as a therapist, the psychologist frankly feels like a detached laboratory worker, himself with limited interpersonal skills and who is more intent on solving intellectual puzzles that may be irrelevant to the basic issues of safety and health for his patients. At other times he appeared almost voyeristic. He showed almost no emotion or empathy except once, and in that particular case his emotion seems more his own than relevant to his relationship with the two girls. One wonders if he also had the condition and that's why he was studying it - to solve his own riddles. But even if that were the intended plot ... there is way too much missing. I don't want to spoil the ending -- but neither did I find it very plausible.

I wish I could say after viewing Imagination that I felt drawn into the character and experience of someone in the movie: the parents, the psychologist, one or both of the girls. Just not enough substance there to do the job. Only hints that vaporized. Partly because its too short. Partly the content misses, even for an attempt to describe the socially dys-synchronized world of autistic spectrum disorders. Good idea. Needs much more work.

A passage early on shows a child playing with a zoetrope (a pre-camera gadget for simple animations). That foreshadows a wide variety of techniques in this imaginative film, including live action, stop animation, hand-drawn cel animation, and combinations of any two or three. Stop animation evokes Svankmajer's use live actors as animation puppets, as well as use of food. Some macabre, skeletal puppets also bring the Brothers Quay to mind. None of that implies that Leiser's style is at all derivative, however - every scene carries his distinctive imprint, including dramatic imagery around a major, catastrophic incident.

After the technique, Leiser's content seems much harder to capture. I found it easy to dislike the ineffectual psychiatrist and to feel for the desperate mother. The twins, however, remained enigmatic to me. They lived as a symbiotic pair in a world governed by beings with huge powers. Neither the nature of their bond nor the rules of that world ever came clear, however. I don't need to understand every part of a pattern in a movie or the reason for it, but I look to see that there is some pattern somewhere. This time, not enough parts came together for me to perceive that any unified whole existed at all.

When logical structure in a movie eludes me, whether or not I understand that structure, I look to the visuals to pull me along. Although strong, this movie's imagery didn't have quite the power that others do. Fans of surrealist animation will find a fair bit to enjoy here, but I can't say it's a must-have for any personal library.

-- wiredweird

Imagination steps into the surreal world of twin sisters Anna and Sarah Woodruff (Nikki and Jessi Haddad) who have confronted their disabilities by turning inward to their own imaginations and shared alternate reality. One girl has been rendered blind; the other has been diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome, a form of autism characterized by difficulty interacting and socializing with others. The girls' well intentioned but ill-equipped parents (Travis Poelle and Courtney Sanford) seek the aid of neuropsychologist Dr. Reineger (Edmund Gildersleeve) to chart a path to normalcy through the twins' mental shroud.

The girls' behavior becomes increasingly difficult for their parents to comprehend. Their food transcends the dinner plate to become living sculpture, and the girls play games in intricate, frenetic patterns that only minds in lockstep could achieve. Faced with the twins' increasingly apparent and unexplainable abilities to defy accepted science and medical knowledge, Dr. Reineger is consumed with a profound professional crisis. He cannot effectively treat the girls, nor can he decode the bewildering world they have built for themselves within their minds.

The film's real strength lies in its animation. Leiser's whimsical but intricate method recalls Czech surrealism and charts a brave experimental path, though he's not quite ready to stand on the podium with Jan Svankmajer. Nonetheless, Leiser's multifaceted abilities are put to great use in Imagination's engaging animated segments. His stop motion and puppetry work is spellbinding at times. Leiser also has some raw ability as a filmmaker beyond his wheelhouse of animation and sculpture, but Imagination's live action portions are less appealing.