A new look at autism as Berlin film festival opens

[Guest guest]

I wonder if she would consider low functioning autism, in diapers, screaming

and headbanging, as a " gift " . If this is a gift, I bet my son would like to

re-gift it ASAP. Maybe Segourney's kid will swap their " gift " with my kid?

Somehow I think not. :-(

A new look at autism as Berlin film festival opens

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Feb 9, 11:47 AM (ET)

By Noah Barkin

BERLIN (Reuters) - The Berlin Film Festival opened on Thursday with a story

of love and loss starring Sigourney Weaver as an autistic woman whose

daughter dies in a car crash and Alan Rickman as the man who helps her cope.

With snow falling on the German capital, the bittersweet British-Canadian

co-production " Snow Cake " kicked off the 56th annual " Berlinale, " regarded

as one of the top three festivals in the world alongside Cannes and Venice.

The film, which received scattered applause from Berlin's notoriously blunt

audience of journalists and critics, jolts viewers out of their seats early

on when a truck ploughs full-speed into Rickman's car, instantly killing a

quirky hitchhiker girl he has just picked up.

Wracked with guilt about the accident and weighed down by his own troubled

past, Rickman's character forms a strange bond with the girl's mother,

a high-functioning but emotionally erratic autistic named .

Weaver, whose diverse film credits include the " Alien " films and " The Ice

Storm, " spent the better part of a year meeting people with autism to

prepare for the role -- an experience she said gave her a new view on the

disorder.

" I think we have to begin to see it as a gift, " she told a news conference.

" We may not understand what it's there for, but if you're in the presence of

someone with autism you learn so much. You learn how to play, you learn how

to see things, you learn how to experience things and how jarring the world

is. "

GRIM LINE-UP

" Snow Cake " headlines what critics have described as a strong but morbid

line-up of films featuring murder, drug addiction, exorcism and rape.

Weaver and Rickman will accompany Berlinale head Dieter Kosslick down the

red carpet on Thursday evening, and other stars due to appear at the

February 9-19 festival include Clooney, Philip Seymour Hoffman and

Portman.

A record number of 18,000 film buyers, sellers, producers, directors, actors

and journalists will crowd the screening of 400 films, including " A Prairie

Home Companion " from Altman and " The Road to Guantanamo, " an account

of three British men held at the U.S. prison camp in Cuba.

" Snow Cake, " which contains both poignant and off-key moments, was directed

by Marc and written by first time screen-writer Pell. Pell was

inspired by her own autistic son ny, who like Weaver's character in the

film loves to eat snow and bounce up and down on a trampoline.

" I wanted to write a film that showed that sometimes living with autism can

be harrowing but that actually most of the time it's really good fun, " Pell

told reporters.

Unlike " Rain Man, " the 1988 film that starred Hoffman as the autistic

brother of Tom Cruise, " Snow Cake " strives for a more subtle message about a

disorder which is characterized by repetitive acts and a preoccupation with

fantasy.

In a dig at those who would try to put autism in a box, one of the film's

more disagreeable characters says at one point: " I know about autism, I saw

the film. "