In the Realms of the Unreal (2004)

One of my all time favorites.

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

Boy oh boy did I want to love this movie. I am fascinated by the secret lives of everyday people, especially those who seemingly have been forgotten by society. The story of Henry Darger and his massive, secret work of fantasy should have been a sure thing. Unfortunately, the movie had precious little to work with and came off as confusing and slow.What makes this movie intriguing is also its biggest barrier, and that is that there are only 3 known photos of Darger, and few, if anyone, who really knew the man. You could feel the struggle as the filmmaker tried to tease 80 minutes out of 3 photos. Darger did leave behind an autobiography and more than 15,000 pages of a fantasy novel, but I wanted to see Darger, and that could not be provided.Darger is notable for leaving behind said volumes, and the fact that nobody knew he was working on it. What a surprise it must have been to realize that the forgotten man had produced such wondrous works. The film does a nice job of weaving personal accounts from Darger with details about his story. One can clearly see that he used the story as an outlet to deal with his own confusing existence. Unfortunately, the story isn't enough to hold one's attention, and eventually turns into ramblings of a recluse. I would have liked a sturdier thread holding this together. The good stuff was there, just not told very well by the filmmaker.In the end, In the Realms of the Unreal was interesting in spots and far too tedious in others. The main character could never be illustrated fully and we are left to learn about him through his confusing stories and the flimsy accounts from people who barely knew him. What began as prime subject matter melted into a desperate exercise to make a full length movie.

Herny Darger seems to be a strange and lonely man, but sadly none of the people interviewed in the film can give us any insight into his life. The film-makers deliberately set their contradicting comments about him next to each other so that the audience is aware of how little any person actually knew him. But because it is true that no one knew him in the least, it seems impossible to make a satisfying documentary about him and his work. The illustrations from his stories are animated, and the narration is done by a little girl (Dakota Fanning) so that the whole thing is very surreal and actually slightly magical. But the fact remains that seeing his work is probably the only real way to get any insight about him or his inner workings, while seeing this movie will only make you want to do just that.

Henry Darger was a janitor. He lived in one room. He cleaned a Catholic hospital for fifty years, and then died with a 15,000 page manuscript and yards and yards of artwork, unknown and unpublished, in his room. You can find out more about Henry Darger and his life work, chronicling the adventures of "The Vivian Girls" at the Henry Darger entry on Wikipedia."In the Realms of the Unreal" is a documentary about his life. The narrative comes through a few different sources: There are interviews with those who knew of Darger in his last days, including the landlords who discovered his work. There is an old man's voice reading Darger's autobiography. There are pieces of Darger's novel. Then there is a narrator who is about 5 years old, providing a little summary and connectivity now and then. The visuals behind the readings are sometimes photos of relevant locations, like the state farm where Darger spent his late childhood, or the hospital where he worked most of his life. Sometimes they are stills or animations of Darger's artwork.The life of Henry Darger is fascinating. It's especially intriguing to think that there are people around us who are silently, secretly living these incredibly rich and complicated internal lives. It's sad that Darger was never "discovered," but even that sadness is complicated. I'm not sure what the world would have done with him, had we known what he was about. His was not the type of art that's comfortable to package and sell. Hard to contemplate a lonely old man drawing pictures of naked children, unless you put it in the context of his whole life. Not easy to reduce to a few key words.The movie was kind of distancing. I came away knowing more about Darger but I felt unsatisfied somehow, like some primary source had been held back, like everything had been too filtered, too disjointed. Maybe it just goes with the subject matter -- Darger was a recluse, not open to interpretation or summary. The most meaningful parts to me were the pieces read from his autobiography. It was surprisingly kind, chatty, a bit apologetic, and patient. No bitterness. No angst. Isn't that strange.

Maybe it is just because I have to do an assignment on Oliver Twist and I was extremely stressed over it while watching this movie, but was it just me who thought their lives were very similar? Maybe not completely, just the first few years of his life. He also mentioned Dickens quite a bit in the movie. I am definitely using this film as a means of entertainment for my assignment. Unfortunately, I was unable to finish the movie so I'm not really sure if there was anymore similarities between the two, would someone care to tell me. But from what I did see I thought it was an incredible movie, even the way they showed it was amazing. Maybe some of you could put your input on this.