>>PREVIEW
CALGARY UNDERGROUND FILM FESTIVAL
Darkon
Directed by Andrew Neel and Luke Meyer
Thursday, April 12
Hifi Club
Imagine what the battle scenes in Braveheart might look like 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 totally freaking 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 winner of the audience prize for best documentary at South by Southwest (SXSW), Darkon is an entertaining and surprisingly thoughtful combination of ethnographic study and epic adventure tale. In co-director Andrew 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 partner Luke 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. "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 – however, the players themselves were wary of outsiders, knowing they were so readily mock-able. "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. "It’s vindicating for Luke and I to know that people are responding well to the film and they’re taking something away from it. That was what the players were worried about: how will the world see us?"
Inevitably, some players were reticent about being featured on camera lest it cause them problems at work or at home. Says Neel, "Some of them felt it might jeopardize their jobs. Other people were like, ‘I’m not interested in your film or what you’re doing. This is my little world and I don’t want you to be part of it.’ Those were isolated cases and we respected that."
But from Lipman’s perspective, the filmmakers "immersed themselves fully in the game – the way that they used the camera really gave you a window into our fantasy world." Neel and Meyer also encouraged the players to 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."
The players clearly relish any chance to spend time in the universe they’ve created. "We were an isolated pocket reality that evolved into this world," says Lipman. "We have 20 years’ worth of storylines and have layered rule upon rule so the game world is very rich. We’re living out our own Lord of the Flies every two weeks."
Their hobby may initially inspire giggles but the filmmakers pull us so deep into the game, we are ultimately able to see the rest of 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’s just a fantasy world – it’s 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. These are all lofty ideas but clearly things that sparked us."
Neel goes so far as to call Darkon "a profound activity." 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? |
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