If you remember your high school experience, you may agree that there is a widespread distrust of not just anyone different but anyone perceived as being intelligent. In Belgian director Nic Balthazar's Ben X, Ben (Greg Timmermans) is not only highly intelligent but is different - very different. Ben has Asperger Syndrome, a form of Autism that causes social isolation, physical clumsiness, abnormal speech patterns, and limited areas of interest. With Ben, we see it in the way he goes through his morning rituals of washing and dressing, saying goodbye to his mother, and the tense way he walks to school, listening to his Walkman without expression as loud music booms in his ears.
We also see it in Ben's obsession with the video game Archlord which he plays every morning before going to school. Called "Frankenstein" and "the Martian" at school, in the computer game he is a powerful figure, everything he cannot be in the real world hero and ruthless slayer of enemies. He also has a love interest, a virtual girlfriend named Scarlite (Laura Verlinden) who is his healer. Integrating scenes from the virtual world of online gaming into the main story, the film blurs the distinction between the internal world of Ben's mind and the reality he faces daily and, with Ben as the narrator, the effect can be fragmented, leaving doubt about what is real, and what is not, a situation that creates some confusion.
Ben X is also the story of the struggle of Ben's mother (Maijke Pinoy), a woman relentlessly devoted to her son without receiving any affection in return. She suffers when Ben goes to school and is fearful when he comes home. She knows that school for Ben is a harsh reality, one he never talks about. Although the film tells us that it is based on a true story and opens with an ominous warning that in video games and life "someone always has to die", we root for Ben and hope that he will discover a larger sense of self. However, when classmates, Bogaert (Titus de Voogd, Belgium's hottest young actor) and Desmedt (Maarten Claeyssens, two of the most obnoxious bullies ever seen on screen, pull his pants down in the front of the class while others stand around and watch or film it on their mobile devices, we fear the worst.
When this is posted on the internet for everyone in the school and in his family to see, Ben downloads a document entitled "101 Ways to Kill Yourself", creates a dagger in shop class, and enlists Scarlite in devising an end game that takes the film in an astonishingly new direction. Ben X is visually stunning and the first feature-film for Greg Timmermans who, though he looks too old for the role, conveys Ben's internal struggle with amazing authenticity. Based on the best-selling book Nothing Was All He Said that also became a play, the film pulls no punches in its depiction of the extent of bullying taking place in the school, with only passive concern from teachers and administrators. Balthazar has said that he hopes the film (which will soon get a U.S remake) will open discussions about bullying in a country where ten percent of teens admit that they have attempted suicide. That would be a most welcome end game.
We also see it in Ben's obsession with the video game Archlord which he plays every morning before going to school. Called "Frankenstein" and "the Martian" at school, in the computer game he is a powerful figure, everything he cannot be in the real world hero and ruthless slayer of enemies. He also has a love interest, a virtual girlfriend named Scarlite (Laura Verlinden) who is his healer. Integrating scenes from the virtual world of online gaming into the main story, the film blurs the distinction between the internal world of Ben's mind and the reality he faces daily and, with Ben as the narrator, the effect can be fragmented, leaving doubt about what is real, and what is not, a situation that creates some confusion.
Ben X is also the story of the struggle of Ben's mother (Maijke Pinoy), a woman relentlessly devoted to her son without receiving any affection in return. She suffers when Ben goes to school and is fearful when he comes home. She knows that school for Ben is a harsh reality, one he never talks about. Although the film tells us that it is based on a true story and opens with an ominous warning that in video games and life "someone always has to die", we root for Ben and hope that he will discover a larger sense of self. However, when classmates, Bogaert (Titus de Voogd, Belgium's hottest young actor) and Desmedt (Maarten Claeyssens, two of the most obnoxious bullies ever seen on screen, pull his pants down in the front of the class while others stand around and watch or film it on their mobile devices, we fear the worst.
When this is posted on the internet for everyone in the school and in his family to see, Ben downloads a document entitled "101 Ways to Kill Yourself", creates a dagger in shop class, and enlists Scarlite in devising an end game that takes the film in an astonishingly new direction. Ben X is visually stunning and the first feature-film for Greg Timmermans who, though he looks too old for the role, conveys Ben's internal struggle with amazing authenticity. Based on the best-selling book Nothing Was All He Said that also became a play, the film pulls no punches in its depiction of the extent of bullying taking place in the school, with only passive concern from teachers and administrators. Balthazar has said that he hopes the film (which will soon get a U.S remake) will open discussions about bullying in a country where ten percent of teens admit that they have attempted suicide. That would be a most welcome end game.