In the Realms of the Unreal - The Mystery of Henry Darger

Year: 2003
Directed by: Jessica Yu
Featuring the Voices of: Larry Pine, Dakota Fanning

Henry Darger was a complicated, troubled man with a deeply confused childhood, followed by near isolation for the remainder of his life.

Squirreled away in his small apartment, he spent his days after work as a janitor drawing, painting and writing about his own fictional fantasy world. Maybe he only slept a few hours a night. Maybe he argued with himself in many voices, but no one is for sure because he had few friends and never varied his routine from day to day.

Any time not spent in his daily routine, Darger turned to his deep inner fantasy life, a life filled with little girls, war and mystical creatures. He painted huge murals on taped together butcher paper, on both sides, often more than 10 feet long. He wrote a 15,000 page illustrated tale, very much a precursor to the graphic novels that were to follow.

His work centered around the Vivian Girls, a group of young sisters who were at once innocent and blood thirsty, shown fighting for their freedom against a repressive child-slaving government. In a confusion that defies most explanations, the Vivian girls, like many of the other children he drew in his stories, were often depicted with male genitalia. Firing guns, waging war - it’s a complicated and confusing mythical tale that took Darger’s lifetime to tell.

Documentarian Yu presents Darger’s story by exploring his inner world. We get a brief look at his early life and interviews with a few people that interacted with him - never carried much a conversation with him, but knew him - as his landlord, neighbor, church member.

The director presents this story the typical way manner of the public television documentary special. However, rather than just showing images of Darger’s work, in the Ken Burns style of documentary filmmaking, Yu enlists a team of animators to bring the Vivian girls to life. Using his art and drawing, they cut and paste in a South Park style an element which truly brings a feeling of life and freshness to this deeply unusual (and disturbing) story.

It’s not at all surprising that Darger’s work is so collectible and in high demand. As an “outsider” he was able to experiment in a way that contemporary artists were unable to. Not being bound by the confines of training, he used every technique available including cut and paste, tracing and enlargements. He filtered and blended these styles and methods into his own unique vision of a mythical world wrought with pain and religious struggle.

Surely, there is a dark aspect to Darger that’s unable to be explored within The Realms of the Unreal. Historically, there’s much speculation that he may have been involved with children more than simply writing and drawing them and may even have been considered in retrospect a suspect in a child’s murder. But as a portrait of an outsider artist, it’s a fascinating and often purposefully contradictory film.

Movie Grade: A-

Video and Audio: 4 out of 5
Again, giving a pass to documentaries: it’s not that active of a 5.1, but it works. The beautiful colors of Darger’s work does shine through quite well.
1.85:1 / DD 5.1

Extras: 2 out of 5
A short interview with the director, plus some photographs and storyboards.

Overall: 3 out 5
In the Realms of the Unreal is a fantastic look at an outsider to the art world who is such an important part of it. Worth a look, but you might want to supplement the movie with a more in-depth historical book.

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