“Realms of the Unreal” Film Review

Realms of the Unreal is a Documentary following the life of artist, Henry Darger. The film was done in a creative way, by a combination of first person narration from a character playing Henry as well as a series of interviews with people who had met him. While the Henry character spoke, a lot of images were shown on the screen, mainly of Darger’s artwork. The film followed his life from childhood all the way through his death. The documentary came across as quite strange mainly because Henry Darger was a strange man and from what it sounded like he had some mental health problems.

When Henry was a child his father, went to live in a poor house and Henry was sent to a home. Although he was smart and loved to read. Henry did not  fit in socially at school. He made weird noises with his mouth and nose during class, annoying the other students and teacher. He noted that everyone at school hated him, yet he did not stop making the noises. Henry was told that his heart was in the wrong place and taken to a doctor but really he was taken to see if he was crazy. Later Henry was shipped off 162 miles away from his father to a home for feeble minded children. At this institution Henry worked on a state farm. He and the other children were physically beaten on a regular basis and he desperately wanted to escape. After one failed attempt Henry managed to escape. He believed he was at the institution for seven years.

After regaining his freedom Henry worked in a hospital as a janitor. He began to find comfort in   and even wrote a 15,000 page novel himself. Henry loved to collect newspapers and story books and would cut out pictures from them and paste them into photo books. Henry would spend hours and hours alone in his appartement room talking to himself and creating art. He did create many beautiful pieces and was a talented artist. He had particular interest in little girls and drew them often. Although he often drew little girls with penises suggesting he may not known the difference between girls and boys.

Henry’s neighbors noted that Henry could not easily relate to other people and spent most of his time alone. He would rarely talk to others but would talk to himself a lot in his room. He would change his voice and believed he was talking to real people. Henry had a great deal of difficulty distinguishing the difference between what was real life and just in his head. For example sometimes the character narrating his voice was a man and sometimes it sounded like a young girl. Based on this, I think there was a good change that he was schizophrenic. It sounds like he most definitely had something wrong with him but it was noted by neighbors that Henry was not out of control. The only thing Henry would talk to others about was the weather.

Religion played a major role in Henry’s life and he attended church regularly. He sometimes struggled with god, such as when he was denied a request to adopt a little girl. However, in the end he could never abandoned his faith.

Overall I found the film to be slightly creepy as Henry’s obsession with little girls seemed abnormal. It was also confusing at times when he switched between talking in a man and a girls voice. I think it accurately portrayed how Henry could not distinguish between the real and unreal, as well as showed off a lot of his artwork. The interviews with people who met Henry were helpful in following the storyline, without them it would have been impossible to know what was really happening in his life and what he thought was happening. I would recommend this documentary to anyone interested in mental disorders or in film making. It was put together in a creative way and it was effective in grabbing the viewers attention.