I’m quite glad we don’t put numerical scores at the end of film and television reviews, mostly because it saves me a lot of heartache. I don’t want this refrain to conjure thoughts thatThe Remarkable Life of Ibelinis anything short of, well, remarkable. However, it’s difficult to divorce the quality of filmmaking from the subject matter when the subject is something so beautiful.
Ibelin, or to give him his real name, Mats Steen, was a brilliant human who changed the lives of everyone he met. It’s clear to see while his friends and family talk to camera in this Netflix documentary. Everyone loves Mats.
He was a boy who was born with a degenerative muscular disease called Duchenne. As he grew up, his life changed with Mats going from being an active boy who’d fall over often, to someone bound to his wheelchair. Following this, quite understandably, Mats attached himself to gaming, something he and many of us see as an escape.
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As the documentary moves through Mats’ short life, we see him unwrapping an N64, hammering away on the buttons of a Game Boy, before getting a laptop and discoveringWorld of Warcraft. In this game, a long-running MMORPG, Mats became Ibelin and lived a life that was not possible for him outside of the digital world of Azeroth.
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It’s easy to see why Mats fell in love withWorld of Warcraft. In his actor-narrated notes, taken from his online blog, we learn that the game gave Mats the freedom to be who he wanted to be. Without the wheelchair, without the Duchenne. He joined an RP (role-play) server and became Ibelin who helped solve mysteries, and through some sublime animation, we see how his life grew online.
The Remarkable Life of Ibelinis not only an ode toWorld of Warcraft,but to technology itself. Were it not for the game, the adjusted and expanded PC hardware Mats used, and the convenience of online gaming, Mats wouldn’t have been able to lead the full life he ended up having. Sure, he still shied away from showing his face to his new friends and he didn’t talk to them on voice chat, but this technology broke down barriers and he could live without his wheelchair, his breathing and feeding tubes, and be a boy without Duchenne.
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It’s with this technology that even the documentary could be made. The guild Mats joined logged every single word spoken between characters, with the servers at Blizzard capturing every emote. They tracked where Ibelin was in the world, right down to what he looked like. This allowed the creative crew to splice together a tale of Mats, shot on home video, and Ibelin, a hero to many inside Blizzard’s game engine.
Through animation that uses Blizzard’s character models, we get to see Ibelin interact with everyone in his guild, sharing the highs and the lows. There are no big adventures here, despite the setting ofWorld of Warcraft, because this is a story about a man and his enormous heart. We don’t need to see Ibelin fighting dragons, because Mats was fighting every day.
I find myself not wanting to divulge too many of the stories from this documentary. Not for fear of spoiling your enjoyment - you’d enjoy this tale of love anyway - but because the film plays out like a game, like an adventure. It’s a boy falling in love, finding his place in the world, opening the hearts of others, and standing in their love.
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Rather than waffle on about the intricacies of the filmmaking or the moments in Mats’ life that are here for you to experience first-hand, I will take a moment to revel in the emotional rollercoaster this took me on.
The film opens with the audience being told that Mats died from his condition. We know that this is a story of his interactions and loves, but that still didn’t brace me for the wave of emotions I felt throughout. I laughed at the goofy friendships he made, seeing many of the nerdy pals I myself have. I became frustrated when Mats did and angry at the world just as he sometimes was.
Then, as the film moves forward, we reach the final quarter where everything comes to a head. Mats has died, his friends mourn him, and his family realises that this quiet boy lived a wonderful and extensive online life filled with every human emotion. I am not ashamed to say I spent the final 15 minutes of the film sobbing.
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Topics:TV And Film,Reviews,Netflix
