You've got to hand it to Eric Leiser. It takes creative cajones the size of the Mayo Clinic to take on a subject as tricky as mental illness - or in this case, neurological dysfunction - and keep it from being a preachy, predicable disease of the week kind of weeper. The sparkling independent effort Imagination is anything but a limp Lifetime movie, avoiding all the clichés within this type of narrative while investing the film with a far amount of invention and insight. We've all heard tales of twins and their inexplicable psychic connection, how one sibling senses what the other is feeling and visa versa. Well, Imagination is one of the few films that wants to explore the inner workings of that connection. Using stop motion animation, various post-production techniques, and other storyline supposition, Leiser unlocks the inferred secrets of such biological sameness, and then inserts a somber meditation on fate, religion, love, loss, and family into the mix. This is not a straightforward look at said subjects. Instead, Leiser goes the tone poem route, revising his plot with pictures and proposals. He never fully gives away his motives, and this then becomes one of Imagination's undeniable strengths.

Imagination seems to be about learning the secrets of heaven and nature. Starring are identical twin sisters, one who is going blind and the other who suffers from a type of autism called Asperger's syndrome. The premise is that together they have a special gift that enables them to rise above their physical disabilities and collectively escape reality into a realm of their imagination. It is when the film moves into the stop-motion animated worlds that I thoroughly enjoyed this movie. It is through Eric Leiser's many animation techniques that the two girls connect with a spiritual force/deity and ascend from their limited reality into something much greater and more magical. Which is somehow related to an albino fawn. Regarding their clueless parents, the twin girls say, "They forgot what it means to dream."I think the Leiser Brothers could, in the future, turn in amazing works along the lines of Michel Gondry's Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) and The Science of Sleep (2006). They obviously are a talented duo. Alternatively, they could focus their film-making in the world of animation, à la Jan Svankmajer or the Brothers Quay, which is this film's obvious strength.

This film is about the unbounded dreams and imagination of two twin sisters, one is blind while the other has Asperger's Syndrome.I was hoping for a touching drama about people with disabilities, how parents deal with it, how the children express themselves, being happy despite the circumstances etc. It turns out that none of my expectations were met. Instead, "Imagination" turns out to be an imaginative and artistic piece that belongs more to a modern art museum than the big screen. It looks more like a collage of artistic slips stitched together. There is really no plot, as the so called plot only serves as the backdrop of the artistic clips.If you like modern art, then you will appreciate this film. If not, you will find it a big mess and a waste of time.

Former Spongebob Squarepants prop animator Eric Leiser explores his passion for his baccalaureate major field of experimental animation with this three year effort co-written with his brother, the composer and poet Jeffrey Leiser. In this haunting work which should be of particular interest to students specializing in the various techniques of film animation, Eric Leiser draws upon his vast experience and melds together puppetry, stop-motion sketches, camera trickery and claymation that dazzles the senses and makes the live action sequences pale in comparison. Employing a story that trips the mind fantastic, the brothers craft a tale which centers on two medically challenged twin sisters who are brought in for neuropsychological testing by Dr. Reineger (Ed K. Gildersleeve) when young Anna Woodruff (Nikki Haddad) is viewed as a likely candidate for Asperger's Syndrome. After their mother worries about the sisters' increasingly tight bond and their tendency to disappear into the far reaches of their imaginations, Anna's twin Sarah (Jessi Haddad) is brought in for the study after she is found to be legally blind—a condition that the optometrist predicts will worsen with time. The melancholy plot is elevated by bursts of clever animations that creep around every corner along with the sweeping score by Jeffrey Leiser that is so impressive one wonders if there will be an option on the upcoming DVD to isolate the superior music and visuals since they show off the Leisers' considerable talent in their chosen areas. However, the existential questioning that permeates the fascinatingly chilly first half of the film soon evolves into a spiritual crisis for the doctor that doesn't quite synch with the beginning which had called to mind the imagination run amok and lurking foreshadowing of sadness to follow evidenced in Peter Jackson's Heavenly Creatures. Still, the proposal of the two twins unifying into one with a psychic connection is a creative idea sure to intrigue devotees of Philip K. Dick's phantom twin motif and surrealist film fans along with lovers of animation in every form. Imagination, which was an official selection at the Tel Aviv Film Festival, the Istanbul International Animation Festival in Turkey and played in select screenings in the states, is set to be released by Vanguard International Cinema on DVD on February 26 of next year.(Film Intuition Blog)