Tuesday, September 7, 2010

The Dungeon Masters - 2008 - 3 Stars

Director: Keven McAlester
Subject: Dungeons and Dragons players

I love documentaries about obsessive sub-cultures like Spellbound, Word Wars, or episodes of Errol Morris's First Person. There's hundreds of niches around the U.S. for people to crawl into and become a different person. These sorts of documentaries usually highlight how proficient people are within their sub-culture, and how lost and confused they are outside of it.

It's easy to understand the allure of things like Dungeons and Dragons even if one has no interest in playing - it's a world that you can create and live in, a world where challenges are confronted and overcome by reason and chance. God may not play dice with the universe, but in D&D, he most certainly does.

Unfortunately, I think the documentary is a little unfair, and I don't think it does a very good job of getting past the freakish nature of who these people are and how they occupy their time. Their sad-sackness is more played for cheap jokes than pathos.

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