The Remarkable Life of Ibelin review: A beautiful ode to a love of gaming

I’m quite glad we don’t put numerical scores at the end of film and television reviews, mostly because it saves me a lot of heartache. I don’t want this refrain to conjure thoughts that The Remarkable Life of Ibelin is anything short of, well, remarkable. However, it’s difficult to divorce the quality of filmmaking from the subject matter when the subject is something so beautiful.

Ibelin, or to give him his real name, Mats Steen, was a brilliant human who changed the lives of everyone he met. It’s clear to see while his friends and family talk to camera in this Netflix documentary. Everyone loves Mats.

He was a boy who was born with a degenerative muscular disease called Duchenne. As he grew up, his life changed with Mats going from being an active boy who’d fall over often, to someone bound to his wheelchair. Following this, quite understandably, Mats attached himself to gaming, something he and many of us see as an escape.

As the documentary moves through Mats’ short life, we see him unwrapping an N64, hammering away on the buttons of a Game Boy, before getting a laptop and discovering World of Warcraft. In this game, a long-running MMORPG, Mats became Ibelin and lived a life that was not possible for him outside of the digital world of Azeroth.

Netflix

It’s easy to see why Mats fell in love with World of Warcraft. In his actor-narrated notes, taken from his online blog, we learn that the game gave Mats the freedom to be who he wanted to be. Without the wheelchair, without the Duchenne. He joined an RP (role-play) server and became Ibelin who helped solve mysteries, and through some sublime animation, we see how his life grew online.

The Remarkable Life of Ibelin is not only an ode to World of Warcraft, but to technology itself. Were it not for the game, the adjusted and expanded PC hardware Mats used, and the convenience of online gaming, Mats wouldn’t have been able to lead the full life he ended up having. Sure, he still shied away from showing his face to his new friends and he didn’t talk to them on voice chat, but this technology broke down barriers and he could live without his wheelchair, his breathing and feeding tubes, and be a boy without Duchenne.

It’s with this technology that even the documentary could be made. The guild Mats joined logged every single word spoken between characters, with the servers at Blizzard capturing every emote. They tracked where Ibelin was in the world, right down to what he looked like. This allowed the creative crew to splice together a tale of Mats, shot on home video, and Ibelin, a hero to many inside Blizzard’s game engine.

Through animation that uses Blizzard’s character models, we get to see Ibelin interact with everyone in his guild, sharing the highs and the lows. There are no big adventures here, despite the setting of World of Warcraft, because this is a story about a man and his enormous heart. We don’t need to see Ibelin fighting dragons, because Mats was fighting every day.

Mats spent around 18,000 hours playing World of Warcraft and in that time, he helped everyone he met. The stories we hear, all told by his guild friends, are emotional and range from helpful advice to changing relationships for the better. It’s clear that Mats was never held back when it came to his head and his heart. He wanted nothing more than to express joy even when his heart was breaking.

I find myself not wanting to divulge too many of the stories from this documentary. Not for fear of spoiling your enjoyment - you’d enjoy this tale of love anyway - but because the film plays out like a game, like an adventure. It’s a boy falling in love, finding his place in the world, opening the hearts of others, and standing in their love.

Netflix

Rather than waffle on about the intricacies of the filmmaking or the moments in Mats’ life that are here for you to experience first-hand, I will take a moment to revel in the emotional rollercoaster this took me on.

The film opens with the audience being told that Mats died from his condition. We know that this is a story of his interactions and loves, but that still didn’t brace me for the wave of emotions I felt throughout. I laughed at the goofy friendships he made, seeing many of the nerdy pals I myself have. I became frustrated when Mats did and angry at the world just as he sometimes was.

Then, as the film moves forward, we reach the final quarter where everything comes to a head. Mats has died, his friends mourn him, and his family realises that this quiet boy lived a wonderful and extensive online life filled with every human emotion. I am not ashamed to say I spent the final 15 minutes of the film sobbing.

By that point, I’d grown with Mats, and with Ibelin. As a World of Warcraft player, I know how amazing these communities can be. I experienced something similar when I had to leave my guild and stop playing when my daughter died. The sheer beauty of the gaming sphere, and of people, shines throughout this film and it’s a reflection of just how magical and special games can be.

Mats got to live the life he wanted through Ibelin, to some extent, through this connection and the film does a terrific job of showing this from all angles, taking the viewer inside the actual game to display how players connect and how friendships, sometimes lifelong friendships, are formed by a love of games and a need to escape. Mats did live a remarkable life and the love he is shown throughout this film shows that. As corny as it may sound, love is all we need.

The Remarkable Life of Ibelin is available now via Netflix (a preview was supplied by the distributer).