Honolulu Weekly

Julianne and Don King / Hawaii filmmakers Julianne and Don King will talk about their Hawaii International Film Festival prizewinning film about their son’s autism when Beautiful Son returns briefly, this time to the Academy of Arts.

Nearly as heartbreaking as it is beautiful, the 63-minute film chronicles Beau King’s journey from “normalcy” into mysterious disability by the age of three. At one point in the film, Julianne explains, “Beau wasn’t Beau anymore.”

Don King is a professional filmmaker, so he was able to capture Beau from birth through his first five years of life, and more. Both parents shot the film, narrated it and–traveling throughout a good deal of the U.S.–interviewed parents and doctors, and attended official and unofficial conferences dealing with the controversial disease, whose etiology is not yet understood.

Don points out that Beau can talk and otherwise communicate (and has attended school) but that people they’ve met have autistic children who cannot talk and are prone to violence. But Beau’s emerging disorder still presents challenges, so the blonde kid has had all kinds of treatment, including 40 hours of therapy a week, mega-vitamin cocktails and consultations with a bevy of doctors (often with differing opinions).

Is recovery possible for these children? It is for some, but even then it’s impossible to determine which treatment(s) or combination of treatments really worked–from completely purifying the child’s environment to special diets to chelation (designed to remove heavy metals from children’s bodies). A popular theory among some of those outside of the medical community–including the Kings–is that excess levels of mercury from vaccinations are mostly responsible for autism. The science-based medical establishment disagrees–and defends the importance of life-saving vaccines to protect against a slew of deadly diseases.

Outside of that debate, there is really only one thing that doesn’t work about the Kings’ admirable effort: Beautiful Son is not long enough. One hopes that these parents/filmmakers will continue to chronicle their son’s journey–and to collect information to add to the valuable material in the first hour of this film.

For all the ideas presented and the parents and experts questioned, it is the visual aspect of the film that is especially moving. This up-close-and-personal approach, as painful as it must be in many respects, gives a dimension to the subject–and the families involved–that is otherwise muted by the scope and intensity of the autism debate.

Hawaii owes a debt of gratitude to the Kings, who used the resources of their lives and work to create a film with value that will outlast that of mere entertainment.