Watch In the Realms of the Unreal For Free

Did you people see the same film I saw?

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

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.

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.

In The Realms of the Unreal:The Mystery of Henry Darger - a well made documentary about one of the most notorious and interesting outside artists.Henry Darger was a recluse who lived near poverty for most of his life in Chicago.An orphan or ward of the state for most of his youth Darger was an outsider even in the worst state institutions.Nobody knew that while Darger was at home he created an imaginative and enthralling universe of characters and stories mixing collage with his self-taught techniques and his unique world view.A good mix of biography and a re-telling of his epic paintings using the pics and animating some of them.Creative and entrancing.The DVD has a 30 minute interview with the director Jessica Yu and utilizes the voice-over talents of Dakota Fanning and Larry Pine. A

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.