Breaking the Autistic Code: Tristan from The Lighthouse of the Whales (2016)

Disclaimer: I am not a licensed medical professional and this series is not about diagnosing the character(s) with Autism Spectrum Disorder. This series is a personal examination of the film/TV show's plot, the character's traits and personality and how they relate to me as an Autistic woman. I will also examine canonically Autistic Characters, so take my personal opinions as just that, a personal opinion. I would encourage my readers to seek out different perspectives on disability representation especially from BIPOC disabled creators who are often ignored in the disability discourse. I will also try to avoid giving away any spoilers for those who have not seen the film/TV show but if I have to give context for my arguments, this will be a likely occurrence so please be forewarned.

In my last two articles talking about canonically Autistic characters, they were fictional characters who were displaying some stereotypical traits of Autism. They were also rarely given any room to have their perspectives shown to the audience in order to humanize them and thus made the films very neurotypical centered. The film that I will be discussing today is a biopic about a man, named Roberto "Beto" Bubas played by Joaquín Furriel, who supposedly “cures” a young Autistic boy via animal therapy with Orcas. With fiction, one would argue that the creator has a license to not be completely accurate in portraying a real-life condition and that the audience has to suspend their disbelief. Biopics on the other hand, especially since this film took some liberties in portraying Bubas’ story, do not have this same license. It is important to humanize the subjects in the biopic, even those with disabilities. After watching this film, I felt like Agustin, the Autistic boy in this film, deserved better than how he was received in the film, especially since he was the receiver of this “cure.”

From the research I did in regards to the marketing for this movie have all spouted the narrative that Bubas “cured” Tristan of his Autism. They go on to report that Tristan is now in university, that he has a girlfriend, and all the other “milestones” that people are apparently supposed to reach. This article talks about the film has this very lovely quote at the end:

“Agustín, the boy that had been diagnosed with autism, is now 19, is an artist, attends university and has a girlfriend. Asked about this boy’s recovery, Bubas says that perhaps it wasn’t him that had a condition, but that the world is ill. Indeed. Perhaps there is a case of collective autism that prevents us from knowing the world we live in.”

My dear audience, you cannot imagine the look on my face when I read these reports especially in the post-2010s when the world, in general, should’ve moved on from this “cure” mentality. Further research into Bubas’s book also was not great here

He believes that autism is not just a mental and neurological condition, but that it reflects a sickness in society at large. This spiritual sickness causes us to live in ways that are disconnected from nature.

I sincerely hope that they mistranslated his words; I am willing to give him the benefit of the doubt if he is willing to correct this paraphrasing of his words. I will get into that nasty piece of business in a minute. Agustin is still Autistic no matter how neurotypical he appears to others. Agustin will most likely still suffer discrimination and abuse due to the stigma surrounding his disability. Agustin has not “recovered”, he just developed at his own pace or else he has learned to mask his neurodivergent ways in order to survive. That’s it. No miracle of God, just basic human development with some delays. Autism. Cannot. Be cured, no matter how many ableists wish that it can be done, no matter how much bleach is forced down that child’s throat, it cannot be cured. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s talk about how Tristan’s Autism is portrayed in the film.

How was the character treated throughout the film?

Taking everything that Bubas has said about Autism into account, and with reflection regarding the movie, the movie has some very ableist tones. When the mother approaches Beto regarding her son she tells him that he has not expressed empathy for anything before they saw the documentary on his work with the whales. This mother believes that this ranger, Bubas, can help her and her son “emotionally connect” via the orcas. I am calling bullshit on this because this is such an ableist assumption to make about an Autistic child. Empathy can be expressed in multiple ways and almost none of those expressions would be considered “typical” by society. Also it is incredibly irresponsible to just go up to some random person and expect them to help your child; unless they are licensed in facilitating therapy for that child. Those whales seem really cute and playful on the TV but one wrong move and your child would be gone in seconds. Desperation is not an excuse to just hand your child off to a random stranger and expect that child to be neurotypical when you come back from coffee with your friends. This sort of desperation is what leads to neurotypical parents being told that forcing their kids to drink bleach, and other methods of abuse, will make their child neurotypical.

Now, after Bubas turns them away because he does not have the tools to help them, he changes his mind after googling animal therapy for Autistic children. I am not going to harp on Bubas for doing research but just because you read a wikipedia article on therapeutic methods, that doesn’t automatically make you an expert. Additionally, just because the animals you interact with are harmless to you that also doesn’t mean they are not going to be violent with the next person you bring to them. Referring back to his quote about Autism being a “reflection” on society’s disconnection with nature, it’s especially funny considering throughout the film Tristan seems the most calm at the beach. How Bubas can look at how Tristan seems most at peace at the beach and conclude that Tristan is “disconnected” from his environment is just the oddest assumption. Tristan just interacts with his environment in the way he finds suitable to him, arranging paper clips and pencils a certain way on Bubas’ desk, the fact that Tristan was even interested in interacting with Bubas would lead me to believe that Agustin/Tristan was not at all “disconnected.”

Do I expect every film with an Autistic person to center the Autistic person? No, but I do expect the other characters to at least acknowledge that Autistic character’s humanity. At the very least, also have that person consulted throughout production so he is portrayed as a human. Bubas, for the most part, interacts with Tristan like a human child and not some abomination which is a plus but those aforementioned quotes make me suspect. Earlier in the film, Bubas was corrected by the mother when he commented that Tristan was “Sick.” She said that Tristan has a brain disorder and not an illness. This way of thinking is very iffy at best and could snowball into the ableist narrative about how disability is “just a label”, which is also not helpful to the disabled community. There is nothing shameful about being disabled much like how it is not shameful to prefer certain flavors of food over the other.

I honestly thought we would at least see into Tristan’s perspective, since the movie is not a word-by-word retelling of Bubas’s book, but that never happens throughout the film. Bubas is given a more tragic backstory than in real-life, he had a son that died in a plane accident. I am willing to give the mother a bit of grace, especially during the “shearing harvest” scene where she tries to block out the noise that would harm Agustin/Tristan. Instead the entire film center’s around Bubas and his relationship with both Tristan/Agustin and his mother. Whenever anyone else tries to interact with Tristan/Agustin, he gets overstimulated and tries to run away. The governor, the “villain” in this movie, tries to stop Bubas from exposing the child to the whales since human interaction with the whales is banned by the Argentinean government.

When Tristan wanders off to see the whales, Roberto and Lola go on a mad search to find him. They are successful in finding him alive but he becomes seriously ill and needs to get medical attention. The governor comes to transport Lola and Tristan to the hospital and the governor tells Lola that Roberto is trying to use Tristan for his own purposes; not to help her son like she believed to be. After Roberto visits them in the hospital and explains why he agreed to help them; he only brings up the possible revenue for whale therapy because the governor is apparently super greedy. He goes onto a backstory about the tragic loss of his son and wife in a plane crash. I bring this up because this is supposed to strengthen the bond between him and Lola, meanwhile Tristan is just laying in his bed trying to recover from his sickness.

I would be interested in hearing Agustin’s perspective on how he was portrayed in this film, since he was supposed to have been “cured” of his Autism. Throughout the film, the mother talks about how Agustin/Tristan began doing self-harming stims after his father left the family and this was one of the reasons why Lola, the mother, reached out to others for help. As someone whose parents went through a divorce, any type of major change to the environment can be traumatic for any child, neurotypical or not. Any child can adopt unhealthy or harmful behaviors as a result of this, it is not just Autistic people that begin to self harm. The fact that Tristan feels most calm when he is in a natural environment just means that he has found an environment where he is not overstimulated, which most likely resulted in him being more comfortable in interacting with others. Beto and Lola develop a relationship with each other in the film and when Lola and Tristan need to leave Patagonia, due to legal issues with the father. Beto tries to get Lola to stay but after Lola explains that Tristan would be taken from her if she does not attend the court hearing, Bubas lets them go. This ending of the film is supposed to be seen as tragic since Lola and Beto do not end up together, happily ever after but all I kept thinking about was how Tristan must be feeling with this drama surrounding his parents.

Near the end of the film, we see Tristan wandering off to the ocean, again, to interact with the whales. Reasonably, the mother is worried about where Tristan is, since he previously wandered off before and became seriously ill. Roberto stops her and tells her that he knows where Tristan is going. We see Tristan going into the water to meet the whales and ends up swimming with them at the end. This ending really upset me for a few reasons: One, why in the world would you allow a small child to wander alone to a place where wild animals are likely to be? Two, If Beto knew exactly where he was going why didn’t he follow him to make sure nothing bad happened to him? Three, I may need to put this out there but the #1 cause of death for Autistic youth is drowning. So, a touching moment can go incredibly deadly and tragic in less than 13 seconds.

Was the Autistic community consulted during the production of this film?

The obvious answer is “no” and I highly doubt that the director even reached out to Agustin in regards to how he was portrayed in the film either. The interviews that I did find talking about the film were about the story and the main character; I understand enough Spanish to at least get the context and none of the actors or production mention reaching out to Agustin or even talk about him. The secondary character in this biopic doesn’t even get a chance to share his thoughts on the film; only Bubas. We may never know how Agustin felt about his Autism, and this would have been a great opportunity to show a child’s inner world but the production team overlooked it!

So, how did the actor do?

Much like with Mercury Rising and Come Play, I am not going to attack the child actor, Joaquin Rapalini, for basically doing his job. Rapalini did a good job with the character of Tristan, I really did connect to the character of Tristan because that is how I basically interact with the world around me. I feel the most calm in quiet, natural environments where I do not have to interact with others. Agustin certainly deserved a much better portrayal than what he got in this film, Agustin had as much right to have his perspective shown as Bubas’ perspective on his Autism. It seems terribly unfair to not acknowledge the person that is “cured” of their life-long condition, especially since the man himself, Bubas, has such a backwards view on Autism.

Tristan is non-verbal and, for the majority of the film, interacts with his environment by arranging the objects around him in a particular way. He also does not interact much with children his age, instead he is very focused on just touching various objects. His stims include slapping the ground when he is upset or frustrated, letting his hand or body move with the breeze, circling a utensil around the plate, and pouring water over his hand. He also wears his father’s glove on his left hand because it is one of the only physical reminders of his father. I will say that Oliver from Come Play was treated with more dignity and respect than how Tristan was treated and Tristan is a real-life person!

To summarize, it is extremely important that if you are going to create a biopic that features a marginalized person that the creative team does their due diligence and consults with the marginalized person in question. That marginalized person does not have to be the lead character, however, it is important to humanize their experiences with the world in order to dismantle the stigma. Disabled people are more than just mere objects to be inspired by; we are first-and-foremost people and we deserve to be treated as such including the imaginary, fictional ones.