Raising the Bar
It is not often that a film celebrating persons with disabilities does so without romanticising the disability. National Award winning Mumbai-based director Onir’s Raising The Bar, a 70-minute documentary about families living with Down Syndrome (DS) in India and Australia, shows us just how seemingly effortlessly such a balance is struck by a filmmaker who views a group as fellow humans deserving of solidarity rather than “the other” deserving pity.
There is nothing esoteric about this work, possibly because it is not about Down Syndrome, it is about people. Onir chooses not to delve into the genetic cause of DS or available medical interventions. What he does is acquaint us with families who approached their child’s condition with positivism, and youngsters with DS who are living remarkably independent lives defying widely prevalent misconceptions.
