Okay. I'm back. I have a couple of older films to review (including In the Heat of the Night, Driving Miss Daisy and Monster's Ball) and I will get those up in the next few days. I'm really starting to look towards getting more and more reviews of classic films up. Don't worry. I'll still be reviewing the latest and greatest and the latest and not-so greatest the theaters have to offer. In the meantime, check out the last review I did before compiling my delayed top ten list (found on the main reviews page).
In the Realms of the Unreal
Review by Jon Waterman
***1/2
When Henry Darger died, he didn’t just leave this world; he left his own as well. Darger grew up shy and reclusive, which got him sent away to a special home. Upon his return he obtained a job as a janitor. He would leave his room only to go to work and to attend church daily. On his off time, he constructed a vast epic novel of 15,000 pages. To accompany this story of a children-led rebellion, were countless illustrations, some ten feet wide on canvases he created himself. Oh, and by the way, he taught himself how to draw. The world he created only surfaced after he was unable to live unassisted. He has since become known as one of the greatest outsider artists of all time.
So, now that you pretty much know about the guy’s life, why should you go see this documentary? There are a few reasons, actually. The most important one is so you can even slightly begin to grasp what kind of brain thought this up. Not a whole lot is told to us about Darger (besides what he writes himself in his diligently kept journal). His former neighbors can’t even agree on how to pronounce his last name (consensus is a hard G sound). That’s how withdrawn he was.
Director Jessica Yu does a good job of showing that mystique as well as the isolation (with nearly claustrophobic cinematography). Close-ups of his living space (which was preserved by his landlord until 2000) abound. Hardly anything is mentioned without the accompanying visual. Part of that is to support the narration and part of that is because Darger created so much that could be and was meant to be used to supplement the text. Yu goes the extra mile and with David Wigforss animates some of Henry’s drawings in an appropriate and eye-catching way.
The narrators help drive the chronological narrative along. Yu wisely chose a young girl to act as the main narrator. Even wiser, she chose wunderkind actress Dakota Fanning. Fanning truly understands what the project is all about and she proves that not only can she act, but she can also read some mean copy. I’ve heard many lifeless, monotone narrators in my day and this isn’t one of them. Equal praise belongs to Larry Pine who brilliantly voices Darger in his journal and his novel.
Darger’s artistic style is an interesting one. I don’t pretend to be a critic of paintings, so I won’t get into mechanics and technique for something I don’t know about it. But I can tell you that I found it appealing and slightly repulsive at the same time. Some of the work was quite unsophisticated and in normal circumstances would be considered overload. Here, those qualities draw you closer to investigate the works and to understand the motivations behind them. Jessica Yu’s film accomplishes the same goal of wanting to delve deeper into the mind, but without the crude technique. The problems I have with it coming out of the theater is that the film seems to drag at a surprisingly long 81 minutes. Also, I didn’t feel I understood the artist any better than when I went in. Even if that was the point, a little help would have been better.
In the Realms of the Unreal
Review by Jon Waterman
***1/2
When Henry Darger died, he didn’t just leave this world; he left his own as well. Darger grew up shy and reclusive, which got him sent away to a special home. Upon his return he obtained a job as a janitor. He would leave his room only to go to work and to attend church daily. On his off time, he constructed a vast epic novel of 15,000 pages. To accompany this story of a children-led rebellion, were countless illustrations, some ten feet wide on canvases he created himself. Oh, and by the way, he taught himself how to draw. The world he created only surfaced after he was unable to live unassisted. He has since become known as one of the greatest outsider artists of all time.
So, now that you pretty much know about the guy’s life, why should you go see this documentary? There are a few reasons, actually. The most important one is so you can even slightly begin to grasp what kind of brain thought this up. Not a whole lot is told to us about Darger (besides what he writes himself in his diligently kept journal). His former neighbors can’t even agree on how to pronounce his last name (consensus is a hard G sound). That’s how withdrawn he was.
Director Jessica Yu does a good job of showing that mystique as well as the isolation (with nearly claustrophobic cinematography). Close-ups of his living space (which was preserved by his landlord until 2000) abound. Hardly anything is mentioned without the accompanying visual. Part of that is to support the narration and part of that is because Darger created so much that could be and was meant to be used to supplement the text. Yu goes the extra mile and with David Wigforss animates some of Henry’s drawings in an appropriate and eye-catching way.
The narrators help drive the chronological narrative along. Yu wisely chose a young girl to act as the main narrator. Even wiser, she chose wunderkind actress Dakota Fanning. Fanning truly understands what the project is all about and she proves that not only can she act, but she can also read some mean copy. I’ve heard many lifeless, monotone narrators in my day and this isn’t one of them. Equal praise belongs to Larry Pine who brilliantly voices Darger in his journal and his novel.
Darger’s artistic style is an interesting one. I don’t pretend to be a critic of paintings, so I won’t get into mechanics and technique for something I don’t know about it. But I can tell you that I found it appealing and slightly repulsive at the same time. Some of the work was quite unsophisticated and in normal circumstances would be considered overload. Here, those qualities draw you closer to investigate the works and to understand the motivations behind them. Jessica Yu’s film accomplishes the same goal of wanting to delve deeper into the mind, but without the crude technique. The problems I have with it coming out of the theater is that the film seems to drag at a surprisingly long 81 minutes. Also, I didn’t feel I understood the artist any better than when I went in. Even if that was the point, a little help would have been better.
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