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Eye - April 27, 2006
HHHHHOT DOCSSSSS
All hail Darkonia: make-believe world becomes a real-life subject in sword ’n’ sneaker documentary
BY JASON ANDERSON
DARKON (**** - FOUR STARS)
Screening as part of Hot Docs. Dir. Andrew Neel, Luke Meyer. 89 min. April 28, 10:15pm, Bloor; April 30, 9pm, Innis Town Hall. For info on a live LARP demo April 28, go to www.darkonthemovie.com.
Imagine what the battle scenes in Braveheart might look like if they took place on a high-school football field somewhere in Maryland. Now imagine that the combatants are burly suburbanites in homemade medieval finery who smack each other silly with foam weapons and shout things like "We achieve victory in the name of the Crimson Gryphon!" Now imagine that it's awesome.
Welcome to the captivating world of Darkon, a live-action role playing game (LARP for short) that adds new meaning to the phrase "weekend warriors." Using carefully cultivated alter egos, players vie for territory and prestige in an elaborate game universe. The recent winner of the audience prize for best documentary at South by Southwest, Darkon is also the title of one of the highlights at Hot Docs, Toronto's annual non-fiction film fest, which begins Friday (April 28). Andrew Neel and Luke Meyer have created an entertaining and surprisingly thoughtful combination of ethnographic study and epic adventure tale. In Neel's words, "We create a cinematic unreality for the sake of trying to express some inner reality that people experience when they're playing Darkon."
Delving into the lives of the players on and off the field of battle, Neel and Meyer treat their subjects as much more than misfits in funny outfits. "That was one of the chief concerns of everyone profiled in the film," says Skip Lipman, the player who was the filmmakers' liaison into the game world and who fights on screen as Bannor of Laconia. (He'll also be in town for a LARP demo to coincide with Darkon's Canadian premiere.) "We didn't want them to make a mockumentary or a Trekkies but to try to portray us as the real people we are."
Neel learned about the Darkon chapter in the Baltimore/Washington area while he was researching a screenplay about Dungeons & Dragons, the role-playing game that eventually spawned a rich and varied subculture of which Darkon is only a small part. Since the rolling of a 10-sided die can't compare with a Nerf-enhanced battle in terms of visual appeal or dramatic impact, Darkon was a natural subject even if the players themselves were wary of outsiders. "It was a long journey convincing them to do it and getting everyone's support," says Neel, who spent three years on the project with Meyer.
Though some players were reticent about being featured on camera lest it cause them problems at work or at home, others were excited to participate and reflect on the relationships between their game selves and their "real" ones. Even so, the game itself was of primary importance. Says Lipman, "All those people showed up to play Darkon, not to be in the movie -- the movie was peripheral."
Their hobby may initially inspire giggles but the filmmakers pull us so deep into the game, we are ultimately able to see the world in the context of Darkon, not the other way around. Neel likens the film to a Shakespearean comedy in that it constantly reminds us that "life is a performance and we're all performing." Adds the director, "That's part of what Darkonians realize about the world through the game: that we're all on this ridiculous stage playing out these roles and these scenarios. One of our subjects said something like, 'This world is just someone else's bad fantasy.' There's some truth to that. We all live in a construction that originated in the mind and was brought into reality."
Neel calls Darkon "a profound activity" and, believe it or not, the movie bears out this idea. It may even inspire you to make your own foam mace and start calling yourself Gorgamak the Magnificent. Is that really so strange?"
