Rowan Named the Reindeer

I'm rooting for the Gateway Film Center, which is now being operated in partnership with the Wexner Center. The complex has had two management teams operate the theaters in its brief existence, with negligible success. They plan on continuing to show mainstream films but will also dedicate a couple of screens to art house fare, and show the movies for longer periods of time. Last night they had their official opening. My wife and I then went to see The Horse Boy.



It's the story of Rowan, a four year old boy with autism. His father, after Rowan bonds with a next door neighbor's horse, comes up with the idea to bring him to Mongolia, where the nomadic shamen will help to heal his condition. Rowan has a number of behavioral issues, some of which hit close to home for me, all of them shown in the film - although we were never told why he sometimes wore band aids on his eyebrows - to keep from scratching himself perhaps?

The film is very powerful, and I'm sure is going to make a lot of well heeled parents of autistic children head to Mongolia and put them on horses.



That's not what The Horse Boy is about though. It is about a desperate family, that loves their child, who will go to the ends of the Earth to give their son a chance to participate in the same world we do.

The documentary is not about a cure for autism, but about hope, and finding it in an unlikely but perfect place.