This review is part of Honi Soit’s continued coverage of the 71st Sydney Film Festival, 5-16 June. Read the rest of our reviews here.
Mats Steen died due to a degenerative muscular disease when he was only 25. His family was sad — not only because of his death, but also because Mats barely had chances to experience love and friendship with his ongoing conditions that limited his ability to move and talk.
However, the family later found that Mats had a remarkable life as “Ibelin”, in a game called World of Warcraft.
Norwegian filmmaker Benjamin Ree created this beautiful and touching documentary, repainted the life of Ibelin with the help of in-game text records, Mats’ blog, the gameplay animation, dubbing actors, and the memories of Ibelin’s friends in the online guild community Starlight.
Here are the three reasons I cried watching this film.
The first reason is what Mats “Ibelin” Steen was capable of.
Though Mats could barely move, Ibelin had a running routine. In his blog, Mats said games had been his greatest escape. “It’s not a screen, it’s a gateway to wherever your heart desires,” he wrote. “In there, my handicap doesn’t matter, my chains are broken and I can be whoever I want to be.”
Ibelin worked as a “famed detective”, and helped many others in the game to solve real-life problems. He made a difference to this world. It reminds me of a gamer nicknamed “Chi He Bu Chou De Live” who committed to translating the game Subnautica into Chinese before he died of cancer. Seven years have passed, but gamers kept commenting on his channels to thank him and tell him about the updates in the game.
Subnautica has made an item called “translation device” in the game to memories the player. The description reads, “analysis of the onboard data reveals several ancient Earth languages, and the term ‘CHBCLive’ appears many times.”
Starlight also holds a memorial every year for Mats. Their stories and kindness will go down in history, even after our language becomes “ancient”.
The second reason is the fascinating connections that games have made.
In the film, we can see how friendships have grown, how family love has been repaired, how love and affection have sparkled, and how the players have become better people, all through the interactions made possible by the game.
The film shows that the connections through online games are vulnerable, as once you’re offline, there’s no way your online friends could find you. These connections are also strong, though, in a way that Mats’ family could not understand when they had received lots of long emails with heartfelt words, written by people from around the world, who Mats never met in reality.
Playing games with our loved ones also creates lovely memories. Ibelin encouraged a mother to communicate with her autistic son through games, and eventually helped the son live a more positive life.
This reminds me of a player who thanked Larian for releasing the Early Access version of Baldur’s Gate 3 — so that they could have an adventure with their dad for “one last time”. The father brought the player into the game world, but was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. Larian has heard about the story and created a NPC called Golbraith Stredivas in Baldur’s Gate 3.
We cherish the sweet memories and fascinating connections we had with games and the people we play with. That’s why we always resonate with stories like these.
The third reason is how games can record a remarkable life.
A Chinese gamer and 3D-print model maker Qian Si Hu also died young, with Becker Muscular Dystrophy. Among the models he made, an exclusive production is the Relic chip from the game Cyberpunk 2077. In the game, they are used to digitise and save human psyches, which allows people to communicate with their deceased loved ones.
You can now find the NPC Qian Si Hu, as a cyberware doctor living in Dogtown, in Cyberpunk 2077’s DLC Phantom Liberty. His mother has never played any games before, but this time she would like to meet her son again.
Qian Si Hu has lived digitally in Dogtown, and Ibelin has also got his remarkable life in games reconstructed in this remarkable film, brought to his family, to his friends, and to every one of us around the world who have watched this film.
The animation in the film reconstructs Ibelin’s expression and movements in great detail. We can see Ibelin jogging, talking, smiling, and helping others. We can see him fall in love, with hugs, kisses, giving flowers while receiving ice creams. “I’m an emotional man,” we can hear him say.
When we would like to reunite, at least games can help us. And I’ll tell you about the game updates when I see you again.
The film was presented at the Sydney Film Festival, and will soon be streaming on Netflix.
