Toward the end of the year, the cinetrix is hoping to pay a visit to her favorite ingenues, the Vivian Girls. You should, too.
From December 22 to January 4, Film Forum will be screening Oscar-winning filmmaker Jessica Yu's documentary about Ur-outsider artist Henry Darger, In the Realms of the Unreal.
In 1973, at a Catholic poor house in Chicago, an 81-year-old retired janitor quietly died. His name was Henry Darger. Just months earlier, he had moved from the rented room where he had lived for over 40 years. When his landlords, Nathan and Kiyoko Lerner, cleaned out the clutter room, they discovered paintings: hundreds of brilliant watercolors, some over 10 feet long. The images were disturbing and mysteriously beautiful: little girls frolicking under stormy skies, little girls fighting soldiers, little girls being rescued by fantastic winged creatures. In many images, the girls were drawn naked, with penises.
The landlords soon found the other half of Darger’s life’s work, perhaps the longest novel ever written: the more than 15,000 page, single-spaced typed In the Realms of the Unreal, an epic story of the virtuous Vivian girls and their religious war against the evil Glandelinian army. For most of his life, Henry Darger, a recluse whom others called “Crazy,” had lived in this rich fantasy world. It was a world he had kept to himself.
Creepy! Here's the genius grace note:
Featuring the voice[s] of Dakota FANNING....
'Nuff said.
