It lets the storytellers as this film is as much about storytelling because it’s about exploring autistic existence to reflect their artistic efforts through a meandering autistic camera which follows four initially different threads that come together by the end of the film. The movie reflects a spectrum of autistic experiences, from safe spaces to complex environments, since it tackles the chaos some people live in.
A young man called Robin Elliott Knowles draws zombie comic books, loves B-grade films and runs his own film club at Electric Palace Cinema in Hastings, where he introduces screenings with his supportive father at his side. A woman (Sam Chown Ahern) fills out questionnaires and undergoes an eye-tracking test.
An office worker (performance artist Dre Spisto), who wears blue earphones all day long, struggles to cope with her workplace but once she gets home she lies on the floor and writhes around, finally safe in her own space. Meanwhile Lucy Walker (whose face we don’t see) writes a story about a dog named Chess who feels “it’s his duty to help all people with disabilities,” while dressing up as a superheroic dog person herself.
In a group session Sam Chown Ahern explains the concept of the ‘Stimming Pool’ (a deliberately ambiguous and mysterious title), an empty swimming pool where a rave for autistic people can be held.
According to official film notes: “Each character exists within an apparently separate world. Some are concealing being autistic and dealing with feelings of isolation; others thrive in the communities around them. But gradually we come to realise they have a shared objective: to find somewhere uninhibited by the tests and restrictions of normative society: this is the Stimming Pool.”
Nearby into this movie that the subjects and threads merge collectively, together with cartoon helping tell the narrative of Robin’s American Civil War zombie story, before moving into your pool where individuals who have on cans dancing with their own music.
Attractively and compassionately taken on 16mm film by Aftersun cinematographer Gregory Oke, the varied stories weave cleverly in and out of each other, with the cast of autistic actors and non-actors offering a real insight into their lives and the realities of neurodivergence, with inclusion and visibility very much at the heart of the film as it aims to empower autistic artists, audiences, and communities.
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