It’s only January, but the eccentric, ambitious documentary Grand Theft Hamlet Will surely end as one of 2025 years old’s most interesting films. During England’s second shutdown in response to the Covid-19-Pandemic, two unemployed actors who had spent their time in Grand Theft Auto Online decided to stage a production of Small village within the limits of the game’s virtual world. Their performance of the play (dubbed Gta hamlet) was presented strictly with the help of the large virtual cityscape Los Santos, with their avatars in the game as an actor.

Grand Theft Hamlet Tells the story of the duo’s unique production, showing the actors’ virtual avatars when they try to get together something that seems impossible. What pops up is a portrait of a virtual theater company that constantly (and sometimes literally) struggles to bring up its production in the middle of the pure pandemonium that is Gta online.

Grand Theft Hamlet is an ambitious documentary based on capturing the tagged IRL moments of putting up a play in the virtual world of Gta online. It does not always work: some moments feel script. (The filmmakers told Polygon that although they did not staged any of the drama, they re -recorded dialogues to clean up the sound.) Finally the creators tried to control a finished product that would never have control, instead of completely embrace the chaos as The shape gave them. But when it’s on, Grand Theft Hamlet Feels like a lightning shot, with the best moments they completely unexpected, as the chaos of the world repeatedly interferes with their attempts to repeat and assemble virtual production.

Just take a look at most popular reviews of the movie on Letterboxd: They are completely full of love for Parteb, a side participant who injected pure chaos into the production. Parteb was not one of the many actors recruited by creators Sam Crane, Pinny Grylls and Mark Oosteerveen to join their production of Small village. Party was a random passing -by dressed in a ridiculous extraterrestrial outfit. First introduced as a curious spectator, becomes the party’s comic lifeblood.

In one of Grand Theft HamletHighlights, after the rehearsals of the planned production have been stopped several times by random gunfires and police activity in the game, Parteb gets an informal promotion to the security manager for the virtual theater company, which provides deadly protection from his Vtol-Jet in the skies. The compilation of the cranky theater company trying to get together a production with a massive military fighter aircraft floating above them is exactly what does Gta hamlet special.

Parteb’s commitment and the other random meetings of the squad with Gtao Players help to make the ambitious effort really feel like live theater, complete with the risky parts of chance: anything can happen during a live performance, including the audience’s involvement. When Parteb offers to test “with my (virtual green alien) butt”, just to go up on stage and beautifully recite part of the Qur’an, make the pure surprise of the unexpected event development the moment really magical.

Spontaneity is the key to Gta hamlets success as a theater set, as it is for all other countless Gta online Role players trying to realize their virtual dreams in a chaotic game. Some people play the game Without committing crimes. Other role players like high school students. Some people play as one maple killerwhile others pretending to be cops. Everyone has to navigate the essential tension between their individual goals, what the game was really designed for and the goals of all other players around them.

The same tension arose when Previous life director Celine Song tried to mount a production of Anton Chekhovs The gull in The Sims 4. Polygon’s Nicole Carpenter noted how it was a challenge for production, but also added extra elements of humor and surprising depth, just as in Gta hamlet:

Swimming, of course, works with “free will”, which means that if they have a different need to be fulfilled – say they are hungry or need to pee – they will do it, rather than they are commanded to do by the player.

It makes it much more chaotic to create a live production where Sims (as an actor) should follow the player’s every movement. But it also helps to convert this classic text in a way that is both deep and fun.

Spontaneous action is not the only place there Gta hamlet gets the strength of its shape. When the climax occurs and the characters begin to die to the left and right, Gta online‘S Kill Feed reports the duty faithful every death. (Spoiler warning for a more than 400 -year -old play, I guess.) “Queen_gertrude has chosen the easy way out.” “Hamlet_Thane killed Kung_claudius.” “Hamlet_Thane has chosen the easy way out.” In these moments, Grand Theft Hamlet best connects the large distance between the history of the Livetatern and the new medium it has been drawn into.

Small village Have been performed countless times, in countless ways, but never really like this before. It is an exciting reminder that there are always new ways to convert our oldest and most lasting stories. It does Grand Theft Hamlet An exciting entry into a new wave of films and theater productions that benefit from the spontaneity of the video game worlds as a potential place for narrative action. The documentary is also a useful reminder to artists who work in (not so) new and difficult forms that it is sometimes the chaos that is the point.

Grand Theft Hamlet Is at the cinema right now.