Saturday, January 19, 2013

THE WILD HUNT (2009) movie review


Wild Hunt, The (2009) d. Franchi, Alexandre (Canada)

Terrific Canadian indie feature set in the world of LARPing (aka Live Action Role Playing, i.e. turning your average group of Dungeons and Dragons players loose in the countryside to do “battle” armed with foam swords and Renn Faire-speak). What’s most remarkable about Franchi’s script (co-written with star Mark Antony Krupa) is that it both mocks and celebrates the participants’ imagination and dedication to the fantasy world they’ve created.

We’re introduced into the pageantry through the eyes of Krupa’s “Viking” character’s younger brother Ricky Mabe, there to retrieve sultry/conflicted girlfriend Tiio Horn who has escaped his clutches to play “captured princess” for the weekend; his overt scorn for the players’ enthusiasm surprisingly endears them further to us, the viewer. As emotions run high, the lines of fantasy and reality are inevitably blurred, whereupon bad things happen to good people in the best tragic ways.

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