Lucybespro It is a performances centric movie

Teringer An Exercise In Nonsense

ChanFamous I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

KnotStronger This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

Seamus2829 With the recent focus on outsider art,somebody must have figured that Henry Darger was a natural. Darger was a janitor and well known introvert for years. What was not known (at least until after his death in 1973),was that Darger kept a series of stories & paintings, as a continuing account of a realm of fantasy that only Darger could relate to. Vast volumes of paintings & text were found in the cramped apartment that he lived in for years (he had little family & had less than no use for the company of other people). Jessica Yu's film attempts to tell Darger's story (with extracts of his writing read by the likes of Dakota Fanning,and others). This film is a "must see" for anybody with an interest in art (especially outsider art). As this film is independently produced,it carries no MPAA rating,but does contain a bit of mature subject matter (mainly in the way of some of his paintings depicted that has nudity).

ccthemovieman-1 This is a very, very strange story and even a different kind of documentary. From what I could see here, scanning the reviews, most of them were not favorable toward this.Myself, I found it slow in the first but more and more fascinating as it went on. It's just so bizarre, it's hard to know what to think as you watch this. When it was over, I found I was glad I took a chance on this DVD and will watch it again. But - it's not a happy experience.....and it is a bit haunting.I would just comment on a few things: 1 - I agree that, considering the subject matter and strange character (Henry Darger) whom this is about, this documentary should have been more interesting; 2 - I did not object to the artwork coming to life on occasion. It added badly-needed interest to the presentation. You never quite knew what you were going to see next, and I liked that; 3 - I enjoyed the two main voices, those of Larry Pine and Dakota Fanning. Pine voiced Darger as an adult and Fanning was the narrator and represented the Vivian Girls. Although young for this kind of role and vocabulary, Fanning is an exceptional young actress and seems to handle to everything well. Both did an outstanding job and the two complemented each other nicely, too.4 - I disagree with those who assumed Darger had no idea the physical difference between men and women, which is why he drew penises on the little girls. Come on - how naive can you be? Everyone - even shut-ins - knows the difference, whether one is celibate his/her own life or not. People see nudity throughout their life, even in the most innocent of places such as statues in public parks, museums, galleries, almost anywhere. He knew. Lord knows why he drew what he drew but let that remain his business. 5 - The more one listens to this account, the more insane Darger appears. I wasn't totally sure of that until he went into his "weather" phase. Holy smokes, this man had problems! It's sad, in a way, and is a prime example of how much an imprint your childhood has on the rest of your life. With a "normal" childhood, with a loving mother and father, would Henry have been a "normal" adult? Anyway, I found his book - from what Dakota and the others read from it - somewhat boring and definitely depressing, to be frank. To me, in addition to being immense adventure story it is, it was just as much - if not more - simply a long diary of man wrestling with his tortured soul.Definitely recommended, but know what you're in for.

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.

Ruby Liang (ruby_fff) Documentary features are getting stronger every year. German filmmaker Thomas Riedelsheimer's "Rivers and Tides: Andy Goldsworthy Working With Time" (2001) literally withstood the test of time, especially with DVD now available, increasing the circle of appreciation manifold. I look forward to the release of "In the Realms of the Unreal" on DVD. It is, pardon the pun, "out of this world." The world of Henry Darger, you might say, is all in his head. We're lucky that he, a self-taught artist, put the images down on paper, illustrated with story text all penned (more than 15,000 pages, single-spaced typed), and co-incidence or not, his landlord couple (Nathan and Kiyoko Lerner) discovered his body of work posthumously after his passing in 1973. A solid following resulted in museum exhibits and gallery displays of his art work collection."In the Realms of the Unreal" (the same title Darger gave his written story) is a fascinating documentary produced by filmmaker, writer-director Jessica Yu. This is no mere documentary - it's full of animation, carefully put together by a team of seven animators, solely using Darger's illustrated elements to depict Darger's "story of seven Vivian girls - angelic sisters" fighting against "the evil Glandelinian army - child enslaving men." Henry Darger's watercolor and color pencil drawings are full of intricate details. He may be living singly in his room, but he's not alone at all. My interpretation of Darger's drawing of the imagined additional male organ to the seven little girls in distress is that he wanted the girls to be able to breakthrough the 'bondage,' the 'trapped' state they were in and have more 'testosterone' to make them strong enough to fight back. To be female 'warriors' with strength of a man's.The talking heads of the people interviewed in his neighborhood were insightful. It's up to the audience to interpret however one receives the information. Being in the world of Henry Darger is a fascinating experience, enhanced by the animated documentary under the masterful conception of Jessica Yu. The back story about Yu is also refreshing. I learned on IMDb that Yu is a master in fencing and she got involved in film-making as a bridging thing to do in between her fencing activities. The online websites (wellspring.com; acer-access.com) are well-organized: plenty of notes on Henry Darger and his art, and director's notes; collection of Darger's drawings, gallery notes and news.With Zana Briski and Ross Kauffman's "Born into Brothels: Calcutta's Red Light Kids" (2004), Morgan Spurlock's "Super Size Me" (2004), Errol Morris' intensely relevant documentaries of the times, French actor/film producer Jacques Perrin's "Microcosmos" (1996), "Winged Migration" (2001) and "Himalaya" (1999), not forgetting Mark Moskowitz's "Stone Reader" (2002) and Dana Brown's "Step Into Liquid" (2003) - documentary feature films are thriving more and more. I've yet to catch Ross McElwee's "Bright Leaves" (2003).