Earlier this week, Netflix started streaming The Remarkable Life of Ibelin. It's a documentary about Mats Steen, a Norwegian man who died at the age of 25 from Duchenne muscular dystrophy, a rare degenerative disorder. After his death, his parents—who'd feared that their son's disease had kept him from experiencing companionship—discovered that he'd lived a second life in World of Warcraft as the dashing rogue Ibelin, who spent 20,000 hours roleplaying alongside a close-knit guild of friends. Using in-game assets, the film captures moments from Mats Steen's time as Ibelin, reconstructing eight years of friendship, flirting, and connection from blog posts and archived roleplay transcriptions.
I spoke with Benjamin Ree, the documentary's director, to learn what it was about Mats Steen's story that resonated with him. Ree had first learned about Ibelin in 2019, thanks to a Facebook post from Steen's uncle—who, coincidentally, had been Ree's filmmaking teacher. While he thought it was an "extremely powerful, emotional story," Ree said he hadn't initially had any thoughts of making it into a film. That changed, however, when he learned just how much of Steen's—and Ibelin's—life had been recorded.
