If motion pictures are vehicles for empathy, then documentaries are that in its purest form. The Remarkable Life of Ibelin, a new documentary from Netflix, centers on the experiences of its title character, Ibelin, an investigator player avatar in World of Warcraft who was known to be a roguish, deeply loyal player who touched the lives of those around him. In reality, Ibelin was Mats Steen, a Norwegian boy with Duchenne muscular dystrophy. While in reality, Mats was limited in his mobility, he lived a rich life in the virtual world that Blizzard Entertainmentcreated until he passed away at 25. How does the documentary capture Mats/Ibelin’s journey? Hit the jump below to find out.
The Remarkable Life of Ibelin makes bold filmmaking choices
Directed by Benjamin Ree (The Painter and Thief), The Remarkable Life of Ibelin has an engaging narrative conceit. Naturally, we see footage of how Mats Steen lived day-to-day, his relationship with his family, the struggles of having Duchenne, so on and so forth. Fascinatingly, however, Ree was left with nearly 40, 000 pages of chat logs that completely documented Ibelin’s time in World of Warcraft.
Rather than merely giving a spoken summary of his experience in the game, the film takes it one step further: providing a visual recreation of Ibelin’s time in the game, created by using the World of Warcraft game engine, with a voice-over by professional actors.
Most of the film being told via those World of Warcraft recreations helps the audience better understand what it was like to know Mats, or “Ibelin”. Being confined to a wheelchair, with only really the ability to use his fingers, some might not know from looking at Mats that he had a rich inner world.
By getting to experience his play-time first hand, personality traits unknown to even his parents start to come out. We learn out about Ibelin the master role player, Ibelin the gifted investigator, Ibelin the womanizer, Ibelin the scared boy facing down his own mortality. Most of all, we learn of Ibelin, the man who truly cared.
The impact of digital friendships
In a time when technology’s role in society grows ever more present, scary even, it’s comforting to see a portrayal of the internet that’s more hopeful. To start, without the access to World of Warcraft, it’s unclear if Mats Steen would find the way to truly express himself. Through the game, he made boundless connections, as evidenced by the outpouring of grief from his online friends once it was announced he had passed away. The Remarkable Life of Ibelin takes us into key moments where he touched people’s lives forever.
One such moment is whenever one of his friends in the game, a mother of an autistic son who she was struggling with connecting to, came to him with her concerns. His suggestion? Put her son in the game, and allow him the opportunity to hug her digitally, something he struggled with doing physically. Intercut with interviews of his friends in the guild, Starlight, these key moments in Ibelin’s online adventure hit with maximum effect in a way that will make even the biggest skeptics of online relationships turn their head.
In a more overt representation of an online relationship, in the truest sense, we see Ibelin fall in love with one of his guild-mates. As the two, in real life, are around the same age, they navigate universal feelings of alienation together, and Ibelin helps his crush work through her own issues, even writing a letter to her parents arguing why it’s necessary for her to have her internet access for her own mental health. The Remarkable Life of Ibelin for so much of its runtime is a feel-good movie that once things start to take a turn, it hits like a pillowcase full of bricks.
Facing mortality and The Remarkable Life of Ibelin
An uncomfortable truth that The Remarkable Life of Ibelin reckons with is its third act, detailing Mats Steen‘s declining health. Still keeping the focus on the in-game footage, the film details how he started to act erratic towards his friends, isolating himself and keeping details of his personal life mum.
A haunting image Benjamin Ree recreates is that of Ibelin in the mountains in the far reaches of World of Warcraft, pondering how soon he might not even physically be able to play the game that provides his only real window into the world through all his friends.
Once his condition is revealed to his online friends, the care he had given them is returned tenfold. They support Ibelin, and the man behind Ibelin, with open arms. Mats speaks of feeling overwhelmed by the outpouring of support he gets, and his final days in the game are filled with the kind of adventuring and escape that he latched onto the game to experience. Once he passes away, however, is when the world gets to know his legacy: the impact he had made on every single person who had gotten to know him.
A scene towards the end at his funeral, where five of his guildmates, all from different parts of Europe, hug family member’s and leave their guild insignia on his casket, is as heart-wrenching an image as it is a hopeful one. It shows that through the internet, interactive media in particular, we’re not limited. We can do exceptional things no human being could ever do in the real world, sure. But we can also leave an impact on the lives of many more people than ever thought possible.
As his guild mates in the game hold their own digital funeral for Ibelin, I found myself weeping beyond my control. That’s the power of this film. To the naked eye, we may see a man deprived of many of the pleasures of life. Through the film’s, well, remarkable tribute to Mats Steen and his online persona, we get to know an individual deeply gifted in the art of people, who reached a level of connection that some of us may never experience. The Remarkable Life of Ibelin is the antidote to the dystopian view of technology that’s prevalent today, and a loving tribute to a truly special man.
The Remarkable Life of Ibelin is now streaming on Netflix. Are you planning on watching this film? What did you think? Let us know on social media @mycosmiccircus.
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