Henry Darger is a fascinating figure -- one of those extreme characters whose private artistic output is at the same time strange and familiar, a collection of strange obsessions born out on paper. There have probably been a lot of people pouring their anxieties into private fantasies, but none of them had quite the tenacity or strangeness of Darger.Jessica Yu's film In the Realms of the Unreal is fascinating, then, inasmuch as it's a film about a fascinating individual. Yu loosely sticks to the standard documentary format, with lots of talking heads and voice-over narration. There are some artistic touches, some of them successful (the strange animation), others of them less so (the child voice over). On the whole it's a competent documentary on the subject, if perhaps a bit overlong, but little more. In the Realms of the Unreal is probably a good introduction to Darger, but if you've already read a couple articles on him, there won't be much new there.

To say this film is good is like saying water is wet. The director has brought to the world a story everyone should not just see...but one you should pay close attention to.At the end of this film you might come away with a sense of..."what if?" By this I mean what if not a soul payed attention to me.Henry Darger was a lonely soul throughout his life. I got the impression he was lonely...by design. He couldn't deal with people because early on in his life he had such difficulties as a child that he figured why deal with real people. How bout I create my own world. This is what he did...and what he did is visually stunning and mentally stimulating. In a basic sense I mean he created some outstanding paintings and oh yeah, there are written stories to go along with each panting. The stories are beyond any Sci-fi fantasy. These are just pure make believe that he actually believed in.Pure innocence is a rarity in the world anymore. If you wanna see some, watch this film and be prepared to cry and be amazed. I know I was.Thank you Jessica Yu.

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.

A documentary about a hermitic janitor, who upon his death at age 82, leaves his landlords and neighbors to discover his life's work of several hundred paintings, some well over twelve feet long, and a fifteen thousand page book(one of the longest novels in history), all revolving around a children's story called "In The Realms Of The Unreal". The book is about seven sisters named the Vivian sisters who battle a wicked, "Godless", country of child enslaving men, with the help of a good Christian nation. Really moving, tragic, and inspiring. A human drama about the extreme isolation of the artist. A remarkable story, told through beautiful and wonderous art work.