The rules of Matthijs (2012)

Directed by: Marc Schmidt | 72 minutes | documentary

Two bright blue eyes stare into the camera. Strict eyebrows, tight lips. After a few seconds, something like a smile appears. Get a cup of tea in front of it to mask it. “There’s something challenging about looking straight into the camera,” says the owner of the eyes from behind the tea glass. “What’s challenging about it?” asks a male voice from behind the camera. “The vulnerable – the need to be vulnerable. The realization that every movement becomes relevant,” replies the filmed. His name is Matthew. He has Asperger’s Syndrome, a form of autism. The man behind the camera is documentary maker Marc Schmidt. Purpose of filming: to show the world the image he has of his childhood friend Matthijs.

It’s a striking start. Whoever comes into contact with Matthijs in this way for the first time sees an attractive man in his forties with an intelligent look. Not someone you immediately associate with ‘autism’. Yet it soon becomes apparent that Matthijs is ‘different’. And that he is all too aware of that. He can explain in great detail how his head works and how it deviates from the norm. For example, that he counts the days of his life in a self-invented 36-digit system. Or that he takes everything people say literally – that he can’t figure out the unspoken intention behind the saying (something that comes naturally to non-autistic people). That he therefore records and listens to all his conversations with others, in order to analyze what they might have meant.

Matthijs’ house seems to be a chaos of equipment, papers and old iron. But it’s his universe, he says. His safe place. However, it is threatened by the housing association. Matthijs has formed an ideal image of his house in his head and makes all kinds of adjustments to pipes and walls with his own hands. Something that is not allowed in a rental property. But Matthijs has to make his living environment sound, because it is his only foothold. He cannot do otherwise. Not even when threatened with eviction. For which he has already made an agreement with himself that he will then die. An agreement that he will have to keep, because he has to be consistent in everything. There is no room for flexibility in his head.

This creates a harrowing inevitability. What Matthijs does is prohibited by law, but the law does not take into account severe forms of autism. The law assumes that Matthijs has the choice not to do something and condemns him for not making that choice. Matthijs is thus brought into an impossible situation by his own thoughts and by the Dutch bureaucracy. Which can only go wrong. In the event of a first suicide attempt, Schmidt can intervene by calling the emergency service. But it is palpable on all sides that Matthijs will continue. After all, as he has agreed with himself.

Schmidt follows the story closely, but keeps a careful distance. He only observes and does not judge. Not about Matthijs, not about the legal system, not about social workers, parents, people around him. They also do not speak, except in a dialogue with Matthijs himself. The focus is completely on him. And the openness that Matthijs shows is only possible through the bond of many years of friendship. Because of the mutual trust. No one but Schmidt could have given such an honest and intimate portrait of this man. That alone makes ‘The Rules of Matthijs’ a documentary of unprecedented quality.