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A Mother’s Courage: Talking Back To Autism
A Mother’s Courage follows an Icelandic mother, Margret, as she searches for help for her severely autistic ten-year-old son, Keli. Margret literally travels the globe talking to experts and looking for a program that can help her communicate with her son.
 
By
Hydroponics Nutrients
Advanced Nutrients
Abbotsford,
British Columbia,
Canada
Oct 25, 2010
Icelandic filmmaker Fridrik Thor Fridriksson’s documentary A Mother’s Courage: Talking Back to Autism is a stunning examination of both autism, a condition we still know astonishingly little about, and human ingenuity. Fridriksson presents luminaries in the area of autism including Temple Grandin and Soma Mukhopadhyay, who is doing some of the most innovative and effective work in uncovering the inner lives of autistic kids and illuminating methods of communication with them. Academy Award-winning actress Kate Winslet narrates the film.
A Mother’s Courage follows an Icelandic mother, Margret, as she searches for help for her severely autistic ten-year-old son, Keli. Margret literally travels the globe talking to experts and looking for a program that can help her communicate with her son.
There are some genuinely astonishing things moments in the film. Most surprising is how intelligent and communicative the autistic subjects are. It’s only recently coming to light that many of the kids who appear severely handicapped have rich imaginations and posses the ability to communicate clearly if equipped with the means to do so.
One of the most startling examples is Soma Mukhopadhyay’s son, Tito. As a child, Tito was assessed by doctors as being severely mentally retarded, and the same doctors recommended that Soma institutionalize her son. But Soma persisted trying to communicate with her son, and learned to converse with him with visual cues. Now, Tito, whose IQ is an astronomical 186, is an author and a poet.
Margret journeys around the globe from her home in Iceland to Cambridge in the UK to the United States. Many of the people and experts she meets seem to hold some insight into the possibilities for Keli, but once they arrive in Austin, Texas and meet Soma and Tito, Margret becomes most hopeful.
The film’s title is obvious and sounds like a warning to viewers to avoid a sentimental movie. But A Mother’s Courage is neither sentimental nor obvious. In fact, it is frank and surprising. The wealth of experts who comment of the recent rise of autism, the visits with families of autistic children, and the story of Margret and Keli themselves all make for a multi-layered viewing experience.
By the end of A Mother’s Courage: Talking Back To Autism, viewers will have encountered some of the most likeable characters ever to grace a documentary. The depth of information and the touching human stories at the core of the movie make for compelling viewing from start to finish. You can’t help but root for Margret and Keli on their quest to discover a way to communicate. Fridrik Thor Fridriksson’s documentary allows viewers access to worlds that, until recently, few people knew existed.
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