Film Reviews

Ben X

• Rating:
• Director: Nic Balthazar.
• Starring: Greg Timmermans, Laura Verlinden, Marjike Pinoy.
• Details: Belgium / 93 mins (12A).

An autistic teenager, Ben (Timmermans) retreats from the real world to the point where he is only fully himself in the on-line world of computer role-playing gaming. Left to his own devices, and allowed to live in the world on his own undemanding terms, Ben would very probably be a relatively happy human being, despite being virtually friendless and alienated at home. Bullies at school can't leave well enough alone, however, and soon events are set in sequence that will culminate in tragedy. A superb performance from Timmermans, playing the very challenging role of a young man with Asperger's Syndrome, is almost but not quite overshadowed by the format employed by the writer/director, Nic Balthazar, who adapted his own novel for the screenplay. Fleshing out Ben's life in parallel mode, in terms of his development in the real world and also that of his computer gaming role (the graphics of which are superbly rendered), Balthazar plays with notions of reality and conventional perceptions of 'normality', all the while subtly - and at times not-so-subtly - foreshadowing the poignant tragedy to come by interweaving straight-to-camera interviews with the people who know Ben into the narrative structure. It's not quite the 'new departure for movie grammar' it's being hailed as, but Ben X is nonetheless a brave, bold and touching piece of filmmaking.

Review by Gavin Burke