Hot Docs Report: Darkon REVIEW

Set in and around the Baltimore/Washington area, the Darkon Wargaming Club meet to take part in adventures in the real world that have an effect on the ‘imaginary’ world of Darkon. A world that exists only on a map of hexes (that’s, uh, hexagons, not evil magic spells, Christian right!) it is a world that is only too real to the players of Darkon, who take the roles of warriors, magicians and noblemen within a country, realistically just a team of like minded individuals, who are interested in expanding their borders (claming more hexes), which sometimes requires taking land from other countries. This of course can lead to skirmishes, if not all out wars, that can rage for years in real time.

Directors Luke Meyer and Andrew Neel have taken the decision to treat the real and imaginary worlds as equally important, and filmed them in such a manner. While the scenes in the real world are filmed with a traditional documentary style, the often dramatic and exciting scenes of life and battle in the world of Darkon are filmed in the style of a fantasy epic, though the score does at points obscure that. Its fiddles call to mind the new world while the traditional fantasy of Darkon is entirely old world. Olde wurlde, even.

Of course, this serious eye and intention to not mock its subjects is part of Darkon’s tremendous charm, as you watch the main protagonist Skip Lipman deal with the perils of being a stay at home dad while his alter-ego Bannor deals with the perils of being the leader of a fledgling country, Laconia, in its battles against a much larger and more powerful nation, the ironically evil Mordom. Though they are all acting by role-playing, no one involved is an actor, so the action in Darkon can be endearingly clumsy, as can the silly, if at times thrilling, battles played out with foam weapons.

The core of this documentary is the blurring of the lines between these two worlds in the lives of the players, and how playing games and make-believe are important defences in lives that for many people are far less than they hoped for. As much as the choice to split the documentary between two worlds fits this theme, in practice it has the result of limiting the depth of information on either world available to the viewer. In the real world, far too many threads of discussion are introduced and not followed up in the name of breadth. Soldiers who have returned from Iraqi, mentally disturbed by war but who yet still take part in a war game are given the merest of glances, and Skip’s wife, a critically important character in his life, is given almost no screen time. Other interviewees are picked up for one or two sound bites and then dropped without explanation, and the imaginary world fares little better. Important rules are never explained, the regulation of the game never even discussed, and worst of all, the lasting resonance of the final battle of the film in Darkon is never seen.

Though the mark of a good documentary is one that makes you ask questions about yourself and the world around you, Darkon simply leaves you with questions about it. Despite this flaw, it deserves to be seen, as it takes some important steps to demystifying (I dare say even humanising) LARPers. The mirthful, if not condescending laughter of other audience members made it clear that the casual viewer is probably not ready for a documentary on, say, servicemen who role-play, as they struggle with merely the idea that people dress up as fantasy characters and fight foam monsters in the forest at all. This doc, therefore, is a step in the right direction, I hope, to accepting the kind of nerds that even other nerds shun.

Other than furries, of course. Let’s never accept those freaks.

Darkon Movie website (includes annoying intro music you can’t seem to turn off)
Darkon Wargaming Club