First up, MASSIVE thank you and multiple thumbs up to Richard, Jack, and the entire Revelation Film Festival crew. Last year’s festival was moved back to December from its regular July slot; this year, the show was only a week or so from curtain up when lockdown was declared. Rev’s first two days were amputated. Richard and co gritted their teeth and sat tight; lockdown ended, the remainder of the festival rolled out, and much cinematic pleasure was had in Leederville.
I had tickets to a movie on both of the lost nights. So my entree to Rev 21 was The Reason I Jump – a documentary about autistic children, based on the book by Naoki Higashida.
Higashida is himself autistic, which has raised questions about the book’s authorship. This is raised briefly during the movie. Whatever the facts may be on the text, the stories on the screen are immediate and compelling. Autists are shown in their regular lives from all around the world, from Sierra Leone to the US and UK. Parents talk about the unique challenges that their special children pose. If you find this movie, keep tissues close by. Even a hardened cynic like myself found The Reason I Jump emotionally moving.
Aalto tells the story of Finnish architect and designer Alvar Aalto, who worked closely with both of his wives and created modernist designs that retain a contemporary feel decades later.
Unlike The Reason I Jump this documentary had a quiet, distant sensibility. It tells the story of Aalto, who was something of a ladies man, in the same manner of fact tone as it discusses his buildings. Aalto had perhaps the perfect career arc: he showed early promise in his field, fulfilled and exceeded that promise, and survived long enough to meet the rising wave of architects who did not hold him in reverence.
Wait… what?
What the fuck am I talking about here?
I’ll put it this way. When punk broke out in the late 1970s a music writer said that one thing had changed for sure: there was a generation of new guitarists coming up that weren’t in awe of every note Jimmy Page had ever struck. Nobody steps gently off their pedestal. It has to be knocked out from under them. It’s simply the way of things, and it’s a part of the process that separates the art from the artist. The work, if it is valid, will stand on its own. Aalto’s designs have transcended fashion. His ideas have been absorbed into the currency of art and design. Aalto’s work endures.
The mind is an unexplored country. 
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