Darkon

Joins the ranks of movies like Hoop Dreams and Murderball as one of the great documentary dissections of how Americans play.

By approaching the subject without a sense of ironic distance, Neel and Meyer get at something elemental, a variation of the American Dream at work, in which everyone can live out their life as they see it, even if that's as a medieval elf.

Eloquent and occasionally touching, Darkon is haphazardly photographed but unfailingly generous toward subjects who exhibit an astonishing degree of self-awareness.

It might sound ridiculous, and occasionally it is, but there is also something deeply moving about people's desire for experience that is bigger and more thrilling than ordinary life. Valour! Passion! Glory! Giant foam swords!