Watched this at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival.
By far, my favorite documentary in the entire festival. Director Benjamin Ree does a great job on capturing the life of Mats Steen who passed away from degenerative muscular disease and how Steen's left an impact on the gaming community of World of Warcraft. Ree's approach on the atmosphere, emotions, and the conversations from the participants were thoughtful, interesting, and emotionally investing as each of the participants had very interesting discussions about friendship, communities, and an positive look in the gaming community. Many documentaries and movies have portrayed gaming communities in a biased and unfair perspective and Ree does a good job on showing an honest outlook on how the gaming community can create positive impacts without feeling biased.
Throughout, the production, camerawork and the sound designs are wonderful. The documentary uses a very interesting style where it uses mix of real interviews of people and discussions told through World of Warcraft animation style which really blended well. As the two mixtures created an interesting documentary presentation that almost felt like you are involved with the characters and them feeling real. There are moments where the characters interacting inside of World of Warcraft that are still burned into my memory.
My only small compliant of the movie is that I felt some of the musical choices were a little cheesy and at times not fitting on certain aspects. But as a whole, this was one emotional journey. It's astonishing to see Benjamin Ree creating such an emotional documentary that leaves you feeling happy and will reduce you to tears.
You don't have to necessary be a gamer to like this documentary. Rather anyone who has experienced with loss, friendship, and communities can get something out from it. Loved it.
By far, my favorite documentary in the entire festival. Director Benjamin Ree does a great job on capturing the life of Mats Steen who passed away from degenerative muscular disease and how Steen's left an impact on the gaming community of World of Warcraft. Ree's approach on the atmosphere, emotions, and the conversations from the participants were thoughtful, interesting, and emotionally investing as each of the participants had very interesting discussions about friendship, communities, and an positive look in the gaming community. Many documentaries and movies have portrayed gaming communities in a biased and unfair perspective and Ree does a good job on showing an honest outlook on how the gaming community can create positive impacts without feeling biased.
Throughout, the production, camerawork and the sound designs are wonderful. The documentary uses a very interesting style where it uses mix of real interviews of people and discussions told through World of Warcraft animation style which really blended well. As the two mixtures created an interesting documentary presentation that almost felt like you are involved with the characters and them feeling real. There are moments where the characters interacting inside of World of Warcraft that are still burned into my memory.
My only small compliant of the movie is that I felt some of the musical choices were a little cheesy and at times not fitting on certain aspects. But as a whole, this was one emotional journey. It's astonishing to see Benjamin Ree creating such an emotional documentary that leaves you feeling happy and will reduce you to tears.
You don't have to necessary be a gamer to like this documentary. Rather anyone who has experienced with loss, friendship, and communities can get something out from it. Loved it.