*When I Walk* Is About Support, Not Disability
A film that gets better as it goes
Director: Jason DaSilva (Not Rated, 85 min.)
Distributor: Long Shot Factory
Documentary
“We are all alone in this world, even though we have support systems,” Jason DaSilva’s mom tells him early on in the documentary When I Walk. It’s a harsh thing for a mom to say, and even harsher in context. DaSilva, the filmmaker, was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 2006 at the age of 25. MS is a degenerative disease that robs its victims of motor control and often of vision. In the scene in question, Jason is telling his mom that he’s worried about how he’ll manage on his own. To which, again, her reply is not, “I’m here for you,” but, “We’re all alone, anyway. Deal with it.”
His mother’s advice is typical of the first part of the movie, not because of its bleakness so much as because of the way it jars. As a filmmaker, DaSilva quickly decided to make a movie about his illness after he was diagnosed. But while the disease provides a topic, it doesn’t give the film a coherent narrative or an emotional center. When Jason’s mom urges him to be positive, her advice rings hollow, but the documentary doesn’t seem to know how to question it. When Jason goes to India for a film project and tries various cures, from yoga to transcendental meditation, his investment in them, or his degree of hope, isn’t explored convincingly either.
At one point Jason talks about how women aren’t as interested in him since he’s had ms, and then he shows a number of pictures of “beautiful women” he has dated in the past with their features blanked out. Obviously, he’s erased their features for privacy reasons, but the result is awkwardly ghoulish. It feels as if who they are is less important than that he has pictures of them, or, more charitably, as if he isn’t sure what he wants to show, and is trying to get something on he screen even if it’s just a blank.
That all changes dramatically when Jason meets Alice Cook at an ms support group. Alice is at the meeting because her mother has ms, and soon she and Jason are dating. In one exhilarating scene, she gets on a scooter to see what life is like from his perspective, and the two of them go zipping gleefully around the Guggenheim.
As Alice and Jason’s relationship deepens, it quickly becomes apparent that the film is not about Jason’s illness but about their love affair. Alice expresses some discomfort with being on film, but the movie’s most powerful moments are all hers. Jason’s loss comes through most vividly not through seeing his condition deteriorate, but through Alice’s desperate confession, “I don’t want Jason getting any worse. But it just keeps coming.” The day-to-day grind of the illness is brought home not through seeing him navigate putting on his pants, but through Alice’s frustrated, guilty decision to go on a hiking trip alone in order to get away for a brief time from the constant demands of being a caregiver.
Even on that hike, though, she’s taking footage for the film itself, both helping Jason with his project and sharing her experiences with him. She’s part of him, and vice versa — and again the viewer learns more about him and his illness and what it costs him by listening to her, in many ways, than by listening to him. The film becomes more sure-footed, and more certain, as Jason loses control of his body, not because the disease gives the film meaning, but because Alice does. When I Walk makes it very clear that Jason isn’t all alone despite his support system. Rather, his support system, including his mom, is who he is, even more than his malfunctioning legs and hands. His life isn’t his disease, and neither, after an uncertain start, is his lovingly collaborative film.
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This review appeared on The Dissolve some years back. The site is no longer functional, so I am reprinting it here.