A worthwhile movie, both for the style of the documentary as well as for the subject matter. Henry Darger was a fascinating guy – introvert, anti-social, hurt and inspired in the way a Howard Finster was. I kept thinking of Finster as I watched this film. Darger grew up achingly poor in the early 20th century and experienced institutional life as well as military service in that era. Probably due to his experience with Catholic charity, his Catholicism was important to him, too.
What makes Darger worth a documentary is the way he transformed his life into original, engaging art. For his 15,000-page Realms of the Unreal, he created a universe in which the Vivian Girls are trying to free the enslaved children of the Glandeco empire. The documentary suggests Darger draws in a lot of his personal experience as the Glandeco and Angelinian empires clash; characters have names of people he knew and experiences he had. And he seems to identify with the girls (who had penises!) as much as with characters like General Darger.
What makes Darger worth a documentary is the way he transformed his life into original, engaging art. For his 15,000-page Realms of the Unreal, he created a universe in which the Vivian Girls are trying to free the enslaved children of the Glandeco empire. The documentary suggests Darger draws in a lot of his personal experience as the Glandeco and Angelinian empires clash; characters have names of people he knew and experiences he had. And he seems to identify with the girls (who had penises!) as much as with characters like General Darger.
Yu points out correspondences in Darger’s life and art by juxtaposing readings from his autobiography with excerpts from his epic. This technique works to great effect because neither source is completely reliable, and we’re left to listen to the information and weigh it as we will. We don’t get Darger presented to us; we understand him, each according to our individual resonances in his words. This is a very effective way to present the man and his work. The eyewitnesses who knew Darger contribute nothing determinate to our understanding of him because, to a person, they say they didn’t know him. His identity emerges from our encounter with his work in this film.
Darger’s paintings seem to glow and shimmer with action with the Vivian Girls sometimes triumphant and sometimes not, often protected by chimeral fantasy beasts. Yu has chosen to give a stiff animation to some of Darger’s work, an animation that doesn’t go far beyond what the artist himself put on paper. It’s an odd choice, not one that was especially necessary from my perspective. But it doesn’t detract, and this documentary leaves you thinking about its unique subject and the way he created art for days afterwards.
