Autism is a brain developmental disorder that impairs social interaction and communication, and causes restricted and repetitive behavior, all starting before a child is three years old. Most recent reviews estimate a prevalence of one to two cases, per 1,000 people, for autism. There is no cure. Few children with autism live independently after reaching adulthood. Autism has a strong genetic basis, although the genetics of autism are complex and it is unclear whether ASD is explained more by multigene interactions or by rare mutations with major effects.
- Source: Wikipedia
Children with autism have high levels of mercury in their blood, much higher than what is considered normal. Many individuals have theorized that there may be some connection between this fact and the supposition that mercury makes up the propulsion systems of UFOs.
Content
This film took a rather unusual concept – alien and UFO conspiracies –combined it with real facts – the mercury content of an autistic child’s blood – and came up with what was actually a rather logical conclusion – autism may be, in some form, a method of communication from extraterrestrial beings.
Although this idea may seem absurd to the average viewer, perhaps the presentation is unique enough to be intriguing to others. The narration was expressed with simple white-on-black text cards, intercut throughout a series of visual and audio cues, showing a young child walking around in a field.
It took a bit of time to adjust to the theme of the film – although the title cards helped to set the scene – but eventually one realizes that the protagonist, an unnamed child, is meant to be autistic. Though I do not have any first-hand knowledge of this disorder, I know enough about it to guess that the format of the film, as disorienting as it may be to some, is meant to mimic the perception of an autistic child for the audience. Conveying a confusing mental disorder to an unaware audience is always a challenge – this was handled very skillfully in the Chris Nolan film Memento, in which the male protagonist has no short-term memory. To keep the audience in the same mental place as the main character, the film is told backwards – each piece further disorienting the viewer, in the same way the main character would be.
I would be interested to know whether the protagonist in Mercurio was an autistic child or not. If so, I cannot imagine how difficult it must have been to get him to act appropriately in each scene. If not, the child did a very good job at appearing to be in their own little world – a behavior that is very common in most autistic children.
Visual Look
In keeping with the theme of the film, good use was made of unique shots and camera angles. Too many odd shots would further serve to disorient the audience, but in this film, there were just enough to keep things interesting without going over the top. During a scene in which the child is running through the field, there is a nice montage cutting back and forth between a tracking shot of the child running, and a ground-level moving camera that seems to take the point of view of the child’s feet as they run through the high grass. It is an interesting montage, pretty well put together, though the footage does get a bit shaky at times.
There is another interesting point made later on – after a title card mentioning how an autistic child’s attempts at communication are quite often misunderstood, there is a scene where the autistic child sees another child at the edge of the field. The other child raises his hands around his mouth and appears to shout something, but no audio is heard. The child shouts again, but still no audio is heard. This seems to indicate that the autistic child did not in fact hear what was being said. This child’s only response is a smile and a circular motion made with his finger.
There were a few visual issues, however – on a whole, the images seem at best slightly out of focus and at worst quite blurry. Whether this was done purposely, I do not know. It could have been an aesthetic choice to further enforce the otherworldliness of the protagonist’s existence, but in my opinion, it only served to make the imagery look less professional. Along the same lines, the coloring of the film seemed slightly off as well. This could possibly be an acceptable choice, but when taken in conjunction with the blurry images it does not help at all and instead seems like a poor combination of focus and white-balance. [Note: If a look like this is desired, it is best to wait until post and add filters in one's editing programs. Basic plugin programs to do all of these things professionall in post can be purchased from $50 - $400 from folks like NewBlueFX (PC), Nattress (Mac), or Red Giant Software (Both).]
