IBELIN dir. Benjamin Ree
by Morgan Stone
1/25/24 @ 11:30 am, Redstone Cinemas - 2
Mats Steen, a Norwegian gamer, died of a degenerative muscular disease at the age of 25. His parents mourned what they thought had been a lonely and isolated life, when they started receiving messages from online friends around the world.
(via. Sundance)
I am finding it difficult to review/critique Ibelin, particularly when the subject matter is something that does not warrant a personal opinion. Mats Steen, known online in World of Warcraft as “Ibelin”, created deep relationships through the game, and this documentary is primarily an exploration of that.
What I can say is that the structure was really great. The choice was made to recreate parts of Mats’ life online by taking character models from World of Warcraft and animating them (with the help of voice actors) using archived logs of emotes, actions, and chats of the interactions Mats had with friends. This animation was particularly incredible, as during the Q&A, Ree shared that only a few people worked in total on the animation, and one individual did most of the work. There is a particular shot of Mats playing on his computer, taken on a home camera, that they near-seamlessly transition into the game animation which was incredibly impressive. Ree also shared that they completed most of the movie before getting permission from Blizzard for World of Warcraft, but they were granted permission as soon as they saw the documentary.
This seemed to have been a really personal look into Mats’ life, and his family was incredibly involved with its production (his parents even coming to the screenings) which really makes it a craft made from love. You can tell that this documentary wanted to share the person that Mats was and to make it clear that deep and genuine relationships can be forged online.
Something that Mats’ father said during the Q&A is sticking with me, which is that he hoped multiple generations would sit down together to watch this documentary, so they can better understand the divide between a world online and a world off.
