Everybody wants to be a hero.

To quote one of the East ends finest customers

"Manz! someones gots to watch it don'ts theys?".

Darkon (2006) is a documentary about L.A.R.P.ing. That's Live Action Role Playing or for the layman, it's pretending to be elves, orks or knights and smacking each other with foam swords and maces on football fields. Clearly I am curious. I digress. I was also interested to see what this film was about.
It's pretty much as you imagine an objective documentary about LARPing would be and it's fun enough to watch if you like to see what lengths and depths we will go to as humans to escape our own existence. And without being a snob about it, it all has it's charm and why the hell not? It is a slight shame to see that even the purely escapist kingdom they have created is all still ruled by egomaniacal control freaks and fat office twats. We can't seem to escape ourselves can we? The film closes with a great quote though and one that kept me thinking long after the credits rolled.


"Everyone faces failure and defeat and struggles with the human condition and to survive. It's so strange, the fact that my heart has only so many beats. It's not a very comforting feeling. There is a certain desperation to life, it's all terminal, we're going to die and maybe fantasy and religion and all of those things are… if not crutches then vehicles that get you from birth to death. I think that people that get the most out of life are those that have a rich fantasy world. It is part of what allows people to hope, part of what gives people their drive to accomplish things. Once people stop fantasizing, whether it be about that girl, that job or that pair of sneakers, if there was no dream for us to try to bring into a reality then we would stagnate."

END.