Dorathen Better Late Then Never

Helllins It is both painfully honest and laugh-out-loud funny at the same time.

Claire Dunne One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

Staci Frederick Blistering performances.

tedg Henry Darger was a man damaged in childhood who went on to lead a reclusive, long life. As with many of us, he pulled into a fantasy world. Unlike nearly all of us, he found a way to reify that world in text and images. He had no intentions of ever sharing I am sure, but share we can. He is known first for his eccentricity, then his paintings which really are quite remarkable. They illustrate his alternative world where pure little girls formed the army of good against evil. Evil clearly was close to the "real" world. And Darger himself appears in the stories he wrote to supplement the images. And of course he is in the images as well. It is a fascinating story and possibly highly cinematic. There are some facts of his life that were good to learn; and very effective to hear so many conflicting memories of the man. It is valuable to see the images. Some of them are absolutely hypnotizing, especially in the context. But gosh this filmmaker makes so many bad choices. Although the story has no explicit sexual flavor, it is quite close to perverse. My own view is that the world and the girls as he imagined them were tokens of otherworldliness so abstract and pure that they need to be admired for the clean purity. Having Dakota Fanning narrate as one of the Viviane Girls, and with practiced childishness, tips the balance from abstract to absolutely dangerous. A big mistake. The fellow that narrates Darger's inner voice is profoundly wrong too. A narrator could work. Animating the drawings could work. But gosh, either you need to fully buy into the world and enter it as Darger would, or you have to set a platform in between him and us that has some solidity. We have to know who and where we are. This filmmaker does not do that, skipping from place to place with no anchor, no coherence. If the man is about anything, it is coherence. It would have been good to know that some of the "witnesses" here basically stole the man's legacy and became wealthy as a result. Their recall is colored by some pretty crass motives.Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.

MartinHafer Henry Darger was a profoundly mentally ill man. He was a recluse who disliked contact with others and spent all his non-working hours either writing his epic tomes (running to 18,000 plus pages!) or making primitive art. After his death, his lifelong obsession was discovered and since then his "art" has been embraced by those "in the know" (i.e., people who are so much smarter and enlightened than 99.9% of us, as the rest of us plebes would probably think Darger's art was crap).Frankly, there isn't that much more to the story than that. Now more insight into his tortured childhood (which is only explored in a cursory manner) might have been interesting but since it isn't, the film seemed very heavily padded--with some seemingly irrelevant information and too much time spent to his crazy stories. After all, what more is there to know other than he was a crazy crank who was probably a lot like the Unibomber (with his own manifesto--just like Darger) except that Darger didn't kill anyone.For a much more interesting story with many similar themes, try watching THE DEVIL AND DANIEL JOHNSTON. Like Darger, he is adored by insiders for his art. However, unlike Darger he is still alive and so many of the unanswered questions of IN THE REALMS are actually answered in the Daniel Johnston documentary. Seeing Johnston's progression to madness to public acceptance is very interesting--even if you don't love his art or music. This is what really sets this film apart from IN THE REALMS--a story that seems almost pointless if you don't love the "art" because there just isn't that much insight into Darger's twisted mind and too much time is spent making his rambling epic seem important.I know I'll get a bazillion "not helpfuls" for this, but this film isn't genius and the story and art of Darger aren't compelling except to a few people whose sanity I now have reason to question! This was especially apparent when one knucklehead said "...if there was anything wrong with this man..." and another said he "wasn't crazy". Yeah, right. He was a functional but severely delusional, obsessive and schizoid man (and perhaps more--it's hard to tell given that he's not here to interview)...and all that sure adds up to crazy to me.

TrickTaylor Boy oh boy did I want to love this movie. I am fascinated by the secret lives of everyday people, especially those who seemingly have been forgotten by society. The story of Henry Darger and his massive, secret work of fantasy should have been a sure thing. Unfortunately, the movie had precious little to work with and came off as confusing and slow.What makes this movie intriguing is also its biggest barrier, and that is that there are only 3 known photos of Darger, and few, if anyone, who really knew the man. You could feel the struggle as the filmmaker tried to tease 80 minutes out of 3 photos. Darger did leave behind an autobiography and more than 15,000 pages of a fantasy novel, but I wanted to see Darger, and that could not be provided.Darger is notable for leaving behind said volumes, and the fact that nobody knew he was working on it. What a surprise it must have been to realize that the forgotten man had produced such wondrous works. The film does a nice job of weaving personal accounts from Darger with details about his story. One can clearly see that he used the story as an outlet to deal with his own confusing existence. Unfortunately, the story isn't enough to hold one's attention, and eventually turns into ramblings of a recluse. I would have liked a sturdier thread holding this together. The good stuff was there, just not told very well by the filmmaker.In the end, In the Realms of the Unreal was interesting in spots and far too tedious in others. The main character could never be illustrated fully and we are left to learn about him through his confusing stories and the flimsy accounts from people who barely knew him. What began as prime subject matter melted into a desperate exercise to make a full length movie.

villianlasegunda Herny Darger seems to be a strange and lonely man, but sadly none of the people interviewed in the film can give us any insight into his life. The film-makers deliberately set their contradicting comments about him next to each other so that the audience is aware of how little any person actually knew him. But because it is true that no one knew him in the least, it seems impossible to make a satisfying documentary about him and his work. The illustrations from his stories are animated, and the narration is done by a little girl (Dakota Fanning) so that the whole thing is very surreal and actually slightly magical. But the fact remains that seeing his work is probably the only real way to get any insight about him or his inner workings, while seeing this movie will only make you want to do just that.