Sitting down to watch this documentary I had no idea what to expect. All I knew about this film was that it dealt with autism (ASD). So when I burst into tears about 35 minutes in, I knew I was watching something incredibly special. The documentary uses the book of the same name written by Naoki Higashida as connective tissue to explore the lives of 5 different people with ASD from around the world. We see various different scenarios from how they communicate to how their mind processes information and we see the good times and the bad.
The film was a visual treat and was just beautiful, while the film deals with a difficult subject matter there’s a constant level of beauty to the film that is achieved solely by its cinematography. The sound is also very unique and part of me wishes I had a true 5.1 surround sound system to experience the sound in the way it was intended to be heard. What the documentary covers is very hard at times to watch. While I won’t spoil anything covered, specifically, seeing what this documentary brought to the screen reduced me to tears as It covers how different cultures and families handle ASD and some of it is so shocking even just remembering what was said is making me feel uncomfortable as I write this review.
The Reason I Jump, is simply incredible, it is a must watch film and I mean that hole heartedly. I truly loved this film and I can’t wait to see it again or hopefully get a blu-ray release of it.
