Few films about disability are as good as this. Directed by French actress Sandrine Bonnaire and focusing on Sabine, her autistic younger sister, the documentary is much more than simply informative. It is beautifully made, deeply affecting and totally in tune with the independence of mind shown by Sabine herself.
This may be a film about Sabine - which includes her happier adolescence, her eventual diagnosis and what then happened to her - but it is also a film that Sabine helps to shape herself.
By respecting her sister's intelligence, Sandrine discovers through her the perils of institutionalisation, the dulling effect of the drugs mentally challenged patients are often given, the anxiety many of them feel about the world at large and the deep fear many have of abandonment.
The result is the opposite of depressing since Sabine, after five years in an institution, is moved to a home for those with mental and physical disabilities funded through her sister's influence. There she is treated one-to-one with sensitive attention and no drugs. The result is there for all to see. This is a film that should be widely shown, both for Sandrine's excellence as a film-maker and for Sabine herself.
Her Name Is Sabine
