In the Realms of the Unreal

I've always had a soft spot for documentaries. This weekend, the girls that generally hang out with me wanted to do some painting, and we needed something to be playing in the background. I headed to the video store, and picked up one of my all time favorite documentaries, In the Realms of the Unreal.

This film focuses on one of the largest texts ever written by one person. The book is called “In the Realms of the Unreal,” and is an account of two opposing armies and their battle for what they believe is right. This 15,000 page novel covers the vast war between a nation of ‘Godless” child slavery owners, who kidnap children and force them to work, and the Christian nation led by General Henry Darger. Seven beautiful young sisters, named the Viviane Sisters, work together with the Christian nation to fight against the slave owners.

But that’s certainly not what this film is about. It’s about the author, Henry Darger, who was born before the turn of the century. As a young child, he was sent away to a boarding school. His failure to adapt to the strict nature of the school landed him in a state mental institution. After being transported south in Illinois, he escaped the mental hospital at the age of 16, and walked back to Chicago, nearly 200 miles. Darger found a job, and a small apartment, and began work on what was to be the largest novel ever written, as well as one of the largest collections of art, both in volume, and size. Many of his paintings were over 12 feet long, and directly related to the war in his novel.

All the interviews were collected very well, and the comments used related very well to what was demonstrated in the film. One of the better aspects of the interviews is that they were never intrusive. The majority of the film focuses on re-reading of Darger’s diary, and through the novel he created. It is through these re-readings that we are told most about what his life was like, and his quarrels with God.

The paintings discovered in his room after he passed away were collected, and animated for this film. The animation is never intrusive, and works very well to help the viewer understand what Darger was thinking, and how it related to his writings at the time. Most of his work was watercolor, and focused on images he had clipped out of magazines. But one of the most interesting aspects of his paintings, and realm, is that the little girls had the same anatomy as little boys. Most of the children in his paintings are naked, innocent, playing in streams and fields. But don’t let that lead on to believe that all the pictures were pleasant. Many depicted the evil soldiers choking the children, dragging them by horses, or tying them to trees.

This documentary is very strong, and does what documentaries are supposed to do: it educates us on a subject we might not otherwise be aware of. It brings us closer to a creative human that did nothing but spend all his time in his own world within the small apartment he lived in, in downtown Chicago. This man’s life was left behind in 15,000 pages of a world that never existed.

Check this one out. It’s certainly a visual pleasure, and a mental stimulation. Me being a writer, I always tend to get more from it, but overall, it’s strong, well directed, and very interesting.

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