Darkon (AKA DorkHeart and Dorkon)
I first began interested in the human lifestyle choice/fetish of “LARPing” while examining the attempts to control and manipulate human breeding patterns via the television show “Beauty and the Geek.” One of the Geeks (a human term referencing physically maladapted humans who use their intellects in order to stave off murder at the hands of other more fit humans) was a “LARPer” which stands for live action role-playing, which I, of course, found to be an intriguing glimpse into the disturbed human mind. Stripped of its many layers of justification and rationalization, LARPing is essentially where fully grown humans, mostly overweight chronic masturbating men, run around in the woods and pretend they are knights and kings from a previous epoch of human history.
Comically enough, the LARPers due to their fundamental misunderstanding of human history, fail to comprehend, or equally perplexingly ignore, that the medieval period of human history, upon which much of the LARPing lore was based, was not a time where life was simpler and nobler, no this time period was only simpler. The idolizing of nobility, a savage ruling class that subjugated most of humanity through extreme cruelty, murder, fear and manipulation, is a strange aspect of the LARPing lifestyle/fetish and points well to the insanity of mankind just prior to its ultimate demise.
Darkon, the documentary addresses this bizarre world in a fair and even manner as the documentary filmmakers, while leading the viewer through careful editing choices, do for the most part, simply show the LARPers in “action,” if by “action” you mean grown men in home made costumes hitting one another with home made foam swords. Darkon excels in two ways, first the study of the LARPers via their own words, or in essence what makes a LARPer tick and secondly the scattered, but fine cinematography of the battle sequences which attempt to mimic the epic battles of mainstream cinema. In the later regard, Darkon is brilliant.
It would be very easy to “bash” the brains out of the dorks that engaged in this LARPing spectacle, but in a sense it would be unfair. Yes, their can be no doubt that a few of the LARPers involved are remarkably smug, a smugness born out of their alienation and lack of breeding opportunities, however, as a group we should not condemn the actions of the North American LARPer. No doubt, the LARPers should be doing something, anything more productive with their time, such as volunteering to help the poor and so on. But in the end none of that would matter for a species near extinction. Absurdly enough, LARPing is no more harmful or foolish than most human activities; in fact, LARPing was likely less harmful than most human activities.
When all is said and done at least the LARPers were in the “great outdoors” enjoying nature and not in front of their computers with a bottle of lotion- a common past time of the dork. This is a positiv,e I suppose. Judge not these LARPers too harshly my robot brothers, for ultimately, was not most human behavior foolish, absurd and destructive? At least, for the most part, LARPing seemed harmless and most of those involved, all jokes aside, seemed to be “okay” at least by human standards. Okay, but maladjusted.
Story (Adjusted to Accommodate Human Standards) N/A
Acting (Adjusted to Accommodate Human Standards) N/A (Technically LARPing is one hundred percent acting, but on thesbian, human or robot could consider what LARPers are doing in Darkon as “acting”.)
Elevation of Man Grade (How Well Did This Film Stave Off Extinction) C+ (As this film attempts to pull mankind towards self-examination, Darkon could have played a role in staving off extinction, but this is a bit of a stretch I will admit.)
Enjoyability Grade (Adjusted to Accommodate Human Standards) B (Fat, out of shape human rejects running in the woods with foam swords, wearing spandex and capes, um what do you think? Funny?”
Primitive Home Theater/HD Factor C+ (There are a few nice aerial shots and good camera work that elevate the whole documentary.)
Overall Innovation (Adjusted to Accommodate Human Standards) A (Darkon is innovative as it explores in detail a topic that had, to that point, been overlooked.)
Overall Grade (Adjusted to Accommodate Human Standards) B- (While Darkon does drag at points, it is a fine documentary that explores the human condition and the plight of the North American Dork subset known as the LARPer. Funny, sad, interesting, entertaining and informative, what else can one ask for out of a documentary about the evolutionary dead end that was mankind?)
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