ChicagoTribune.com - Review - 'Darkon' more than just role playing

`Darkon' more than just role playing
`Darkon' (star)(star)(star)
Michael Esposito
February 23, 2007

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Not so long ago armored warriors met on a great field of battle and wrought the destiny of nations. One suffered a grave defeat while the other rose toward world domination. All of it was captured in the documentary "Darkon," named for the fantasy land that is the object of conquest for the live-action role-playing gamers who don knightly costumes and wield foam swords, axes, spears and the like in weekend combat.

The gamers, based in the Baltimore area, are an interesting cross-section of society. One is a successful businessman who credits his kingly game character with helping him develop valuable real-world leadership skills. Another grew up around fantasy games (his dad ran a traditional tabletop game company), but he finds battling in warrior gear to be more fulfilling. Even a real soldier, returned from combat overseas, joins the action. There are a large number of women gamers as well, including an ex-stripper single mom who lives in her parents' house and says she needs the few hours of controlling her own destiny that the game provides.

In off-battlefield interviews, many gamers reveal that the roles they play in the real world of houses and jobs, their middle-class lifestyles, leave them with a void. There's a sense that one good break along the road could propel some of these folks to greatness, but missed connections have, so far, left them short of their dreams.

The insights into the differences and surprising similarities between real life and game life are profound. When one gamer talks about a setback on the battlefield, because his fellows ignored his orders, and his frustration that it's as if his real life was creeping into his diversion, it tugs at the heart. There are lessons to be learned here, not the least of which is that you should never trust elf mercenaries, no matter how much you pay them.

Running time: 1:30. Showtimes: 8 p.m. Fri., 3:15 p.m. Sat., 6:15 p.m. Mon.-Tue., 8 p.m. Wed. and 6:15 p.m. Thu. at the Gene Siskel Film Center.No MPAA rating (foam-padded violence, some language, traitorous elf mercenaries).

StarTribune.com - Mineapolis Review - Darkon

Movie review: Darkon a hilarious true documentary
By Colin Covert, Star Tribune

Unrated, playground violence. Where: Bell Museum Aud.
If the last Christopher Guest mockumentary left you feeling undernourished, don't miss "Darkon," a hilarious true documentary about a stranger-than-fiction bunch of medieval war-gamers. The hordes of Darkon are a thousand LARPs (live-action role players) who gather on the soccer fields of Baltimore, dressed in knightly regalia and ready to battle with foam rubber swords for the honor of their imaginary homelands.

Directors Luke Meyer and Andrew Neel have a lot of affection for their subjects, who are generally in their 20s, smart, imaginative and powerless in their day-to-day lives. That's why they dress up in cloaks and helmets -- as one puts it: "Everything that was once noble and good in this world is gone, and it's been replaced with Wal-Mart."

There's a blessed absence of snark in the filmmaking; "Darkon" never mocks the players. In fact, the camera puts us in the thick of battles that look like a community college production of "The Return of the King" and make it look like huge fun -- there are even catapults. It's cleverly and ambitiously filmed (flyover shots of the gamers' gridlike housing developments make them look a lot like the cells on the Darkon map). No surprise that it took the Audience Documentary Prize at last year's South by Southwest Film Festival. Battle on!

TucsonWeekly.com - Darkon - We're All Elves

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We're All Elves

'Darkon' chronicles the thin line between RP and RL, with touching results

By JAMES DIGIOVANNA email this author
We're All Elves

Darkon. Directed by Luke Meyer and Andrew Neel. Starring Skip Lipman, Daniel McCarthur and Rebecca Thurmond. Rated Not Rated. Genre: Documentary.
"Whatever skills I have don't go well as far as being successful in this civilization," says Skip Lipman, a stay-at-home dad in a Maryland suburb. Growing up, his dream was to inherit his father's business and spend his life joyfully running it. However, the fates were not kind, as Skip's evil brother stole the business, sold it, and left Skip without meaning or purpose.

And so Skip decided to take revenge.

But not on his brother. Instead, two weekends a month, Skip dons shiny metal armor and a large wooden shield and joins his warrior brethren in battle upon the fields of Darkon, a kingdom of intrigue, magic and a strict call-your-own-hit combat system with a per-battle experience point bonus.

Darkon, the story of a massive live-action role-playing game (LARP) in the Baltimore/DC area, is pretty much the only film with a "fantasy/documentary" genre designation. It's also a touchingly human movie about the eclectic assortment of businessmen, nerds, strippers and partyers who enjoy dressing up as heroes or elves or busty, busty maidens.

And of those heroes, one stands out for his bravery and nobility, and for the fact that he has begun to find the world of Darkon to be, in some ways, more real than his life as an unarmored suburbanite. That man is Skip Lipman, or as his Darkonian allies call him, Bannor of Laconia.

Opposing Skip is the evil Keldar of Mordom, aka Kenyon Wells, a manager at an IT consulting firm (evil!) who, in the world of Darkon, is warlord of a wicked empire that seeks to enslave all the free kingdoms, taking their lands, honor and lunch money.

The film starts with a pronouncement of war by Skip in his Bannor of Laconia guise. Bannor has had enough of the evil he wrought when he was still in alliance with the Mordomians, and now seeks to right these wrongs by hitting people with foam weapons until they submit to his glorious might.

Cutting to nine months earlier, when Bannor's plot was first gestating, Darkon then proceeds to explore the lives of a half dozen of the most devout Darkon players.

There's Rebecca, a single mom and ex-stripper who lives in her parents' basement and feels like she has no control or satisfaction in her life. Well, in her "real" life; in Darkon she's Nemesis, leader of a band of adventurers who look to her for guidance and snacks.

And then there's Danny, a college kid who gives off the downy scent of virginity and speaks of himself in the third person. "I like Danny but sometimes Danny doesn't have the balls to do what Danny needs to," he says, recounting his inability to talk to women who aren't wearing bodices and speaking in mock old English. Thus he becomes Trivius the nomad, wandering the world of Darkon in search of respect and a pretend girlfriend, like maybe an elf or something.

The elves of Darkon actually seem to be the most dedicated, and to be having the most fun. They darken their faces, speak in elvish, and revel in betrayal and canned alcohol beverages. "I come here, pay $5, beat everything within sight, have a good time, sit down, drink a beer," says one unidentified elven man. Other than the blackface makeup and vaguely medieval outfit, he looks like the kind of guy you'd meet at a local sports bar, except that he could totally kick your ass with a halberd.

While the characters have fun, play make-believe, and occasionally seek some greater sense of esteem, Skip immerses himself in his plans as Bannor. In one of the weirdest and most affecting sequences, Skip and his friend James sit at a local diner discussing their in-game lives. James wants to switch sides and take up with Keldar, but Skip takes this as a real betrayal. "It's just a game!" says James, but Skip, unable to make the distinction, loses a friend.

The drama and passion of Darkon are surprisingly affecting, and the filmmakers, though understanding the oddness and even ridiculous nature of the game, never laugh at the players. Instead, they use the split between real life/game life to create a very compelling story about the ways in which people find meaning and define identity.

One thing the film makes clear is the line between acting and being is very thin. "Long before I was ready to negotiate a multi-million dollar contract, I was negotiating a treaty between our country and other countries," says Kenyon/Keldar, reclining in his office chair. It's not immediately apparent which of the two gives him a greater sense of accomplishment.

Directors Luke Meyer and Andrew Neel have done an expert job editing a strong, story-centered film out of the hours of footage they shot, producing a completely engrossing 84 minutes. The story of Bannor's fight against Keldar gives the movie its plot. But the heart of the film is in the lives of people like Skip and Danny and Rebecca. For them, Darkon is place that is as full of failure and difficulty as the real world, but it's a place where those failures and difficulties have a meaningful place in a larger story, and it's a place where, as each of them notes, they have some control over their own destiny.

TheStranger.com - Seattle Newspaper - Darkon

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Darkon

dir. Andrew Neel and Luke Meyer

They clash in the parks and wooded areas surrounding Baltimore. These men and women, mostly in their 30s, dress up in armor and various medieval garb. Some even speak invented languages. They are soldiers in the midst of an epic war between rival nations, scheming and negotiating, double-crossing and backstabbing, but ultimately, and routinely, meeting on the battlefields, where they hammer at each other with weapons made of cardboard and foam. It's Dungeons & Dragons come to frenzied, and completely serious, life; World of Warcraft let loose from the hard drive.

As documentary subjects go, the game of Darkon is ripe for mockery. The game is geekery taken to its new and—if not for the relative normality of its players—troubling heights. It runs the risk of becoming all consuming. But Darkon's directors, Andrew Neel and Luke Meyer, haven't set out to present their subjects as an army of delusional dorks. We learn that for many it is no more than an escape from daily doldrums, for others a chance to earn a popularity that eluded them in high school, and, yes, for some who immerse themselves in the game's invented mythology, it's a means of avoiding their lives. But when Neel and Meyer show us the players in battle—complete with soaring cameras and thundering score—their obsession, no matter how minor or major, is both charming and, in a sense, understandable. After all, who hasn't dreamed of being a hero at some point in his life? And, for that matter, who wouldn't enjoy bashing his friends and enemies with cardboard swords every once in a while? BRADLEY STEINBACHER