People love to blah-blah-blah about how no one has imagination anymore, how Americans are losing the ability to fantasize due to the great brain suck of TV and the Internet. And yet we tend to raise eyebrows about those who engage in fantasy role-playing games such as Dungeons & Dragons - games that are like attending an imagination aerobics class. As kids, the players are pigeonholed as "nerds" and "geeks," and when they're older, they're seen in less affectionate terms, as a kind of creepy fringe.
"Darkon," tonight at 9 on IFC, is a rewarding documentary that gives role-playing gamesters a less dismissive look-over. The movie zeroes in on a live-action game in Baltimore, in which hundreds of players battle for land in the mythic realm of Darkon. Every other weekend, they gather in parks to create this fantasy world, each having invented a heroic character who wears a medieval costume and carries foam-encrusted weaponry. Essentially, they are writing their own adventure saga, an unending fictional story built on the influence of Arthurian legend and "The Lord of the Rings."
As "Darkon" unfolds, directors Andrew Neel and Luke Meyer get at the deep importance of the game to its "warrior knights" - as a social event, as a psychological salve, and as an empowering spiritual experience. But they also remind us, with admirable subtlety, that we are all role players of sorts - at work, with our families, with our friends. There is very little condescension in this movie - nothing that makes these players seem particularly pathet ic, or merely cute. Indeed, it celebrates their decision to find community and creativity in their lives, much in the way athletes find engagement in local sports competitions.
Neel and Meyer move between dramatically filmed scenes from the Darkon game - the crossing of swords on the battlefield, the strategizing in tents - and scenes from the players' lives. The back-and-forth is effective, in that we can see how unexciting their lives are in comparison to Darkon. Most of the players we meet live amid strip malls and work unstimulating jobs, and the game offers them an opportunity for pure fun and excitement. A former stripper named Becky, who lives in her parent's basement, explains how she also gains a sense of control over her life by having created her empowered alter ego, named Queen Elizabeth deNemesis.
The central figure in "Darkon" is Skip Lipman. Lipman is a stay-at-home dad who, we gradually learn, was pushed out of his family business. Like all of the interviewees in the movie, he is self-aware and articulate enough to understand why he loves the game. "I really do want to be a superhero in real life," he says. In Darkon, he is a political leader named Bannor of Laconia. "Most people spend their time not doing anything or being a victim," he says, "and when you're a player in pretty much any game, you control your fate."
Lipman has chosen to get out of the house and flex his leadership muscles, and "Darkon" is respectful of that. Dressed in his armor and colorful regalia, Lipman is a fighter.
Matthew Gilbert can be reached at gilbert@globe.com. For more on TV, visit boston.com/ae/tv/blog/.
