In Sight/ Arts & Entertainment: Hermit's realm revealed in a tale of loneliness and creativity

BY MONTY DIPIETRO, CONTRIBUTING WRITER

IN THE REALMS OF THE UNREAL

Opens March 29 ・82 minutes

・Cinema Rise in Tokyo

Since his death in 1973, the story of Henry Darger had been begging to be told--the challenge was how to do it. Several years ago, American director Jessica Yu finally went after the elusive outsider artist, avoiding a dramatized narrative in favor of an ambitiously stylized documentary approach. While hardly a box office smash, "In the Realms of the Unreal" earned a generally favorable critical reception.

"Mystery" is the right word, as Darger lived an almost totally obscure life. Born in Chicago, he was placed in an orphanage, where he was regarded by doctors as a bit daft. He escaped when he was 16 and moved into the city's North Side, got work as a janitor and lived as a recluse until his death. There exist but three known photographs of Darger; and in the five years Yu spent making her film, she managed to locate only a handful of neighbors who even remembered him. In their accounts, they offer different pronunciations of his name, while about all they agree on is that Darger was a loner who wore a grubby army surplus coat and went to church daily.

How to make a film about such a man? Or, a better question--why make a film about such a man? Darger's transcendent appeal was revealed on his 81st birthday, as he lay on his deathbed in a paupers' hospital. Nathan Lerner, Darger's landlord, had set himself the task of clearing out his dying tenant's apartment. Entering the small room, Lerner was astonished to find a treasure house of writings and paintings, including a work that has come to be regarded as the longest book ever written--a 15,145 page, lavishly illustrated fantasy-adventure novel called "The Story of the Vivian Girls, in What Is Known as the Realms of the Unreal, of the Glandeco-Angelinnian War Storm, Caused by the Child Slave Rebellion."

This discovery is the dramatic moment in Darger's story. In Yu's film, however, because the find concludes a chronology of Darger's life, the viewer is already well aware of the creative projects that had driven him for some 60 years. This renders the neighbors' recounting of their discovery anticlimatic.

Aside from this specific concern, there are other, general problems involved in making films about artists. The creative process itself is not ostensibly dramatic. There can be sexy celluloid if the artist lived a public or turbulent life (as in the successful films about Van Gogh and Jackson Pollock). But because Darger knew practically no one and interacted only on the most superficial of levels, it is impossible to reconstruct his behavior or inclinations in an accurate or engaging manner. Darger was, as Yu told PBS, "creating this work for an audience of one, himself ... he was trying to create a world to live in, out of his own imagination."

And so Yu gambles, and strives to bring the viewer inside Darger's world. Somewhat surprisingly, she succeeds.

Actor Larry Pine reads selections from Darger's writing, including his autobiography; while a young female voice (Dakota Fanning) reads passages written for the Vivian Girls--the septet of sisters who are the heroines in Darger's illustrated novel.

Meanwhile, visually, we have the hundreds of phantasmagoric paintings and collages that Darger created to illustrate his novel. A number of these have been "animated" for the film. While no one can say for certain what Darger would have thought of this treatment, the animators did work exclusively with elements from the original paintings, and the dynamic effects, are, I would say, worth the risk of any affront to artistic purity.

The sometimes confusing confluence of voices and images carry the viewer away, dreamlike, as we visit sunlit gardens with smiling young girls and magical winged creatures; and then look down on battlefields bloodied with torture and carnage. It is in these moments, unsure whether we are hearing Darger's words or those of his characters, that our moorings briefly disappear, and we find ourselves in Darger's fantasy world.

The film employs newsreel-style segments to chart the growth of Chicago from the early 20th century through the '60s, the changing cityscape further emphasizing just how long Darger spent on his project. Comments, particularly from Lerner's widow Kiyoko, explore the question of Darger's mental state; while the archival photographs of Darger's apartment interior provide a glimpse into the environment of total obsession.

"In the Realms of the Unreal" is a challenge well met. Yes, it asks more questions than it answers, but really it could be no other way. In particular, the film provokes an examination of the ideas and values that shape our understanding of loneliness and creativity.(IHT/Asahi: March 21,2008)