‘The Remarkable Life Of Ibelin’ Film Review: A Raw, Groundbreaking And Inspiring Celebration Of An Extraordinary, Ordinary Person

Most documentaries involve the lives of famous people or influential creators and thinkers. We rarely see the life of an extraordinary, ordinary person being portrayed. Besides what TikTok makes you believe, not all our lives aren’t worth documenting. But occasionally, you come across a story that needs to see the light of day. One of those is the one about Mats Steen, or Ibelin, as he’s known to his gaming community. It was director Benjamin Ree who saw the importance of Mats’s story and turned it into a raw, groundbreaking and inspiring celebration of Mats’ life and online community.

Soon after their son Mats Steen was born in 1989 in Norway, his parents, Robert and Trude, knew something was wrong with his development. He developed slower than other kids his age, and after doing some tests, they received a world-shattering verdict. Mats was diagnosed with Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy, a disease decreasing his physical state and his ability to live a ‘normal’ life. While the family did everything they could to give Mats the best care possible, even more so when his fading physical condition worsened at a rapid pace, Mats lost the battle with his disease in 2014 as he was ripped away at the age of only 25. This sensitive re-telling of his life via the emotional interviews with his courageous parents and sister and the traditionally made home videos happens during the first half an hour, and there’s no dry eye in the house already.

There’s still around an hour and ten minutes of documentary to come, and what you will witness as an audience is a genre-defying, stirring visualization of what kind of person Mats was. While his parents were afraid that their son didn’t experience love, friendship and a true purpose in life, they couldn’t have been more wrong. They discovered that while playing the multiplayer game World of Warcraft, Mats touched many people’s lives worldwide as his strong, buff in-game avatar Ibelin. He made friends, experienced love, and encouraged others to find out who they truly are.

After Mats’ parents discovered their son’s secretive life, they posted an entry on their son’s blog to say that Mats/Ibelin would never log into the game anymore. Not even a day after posting it, the family was overwhelmed with outpouring messages from Mats’ co-gamers. They came together to pay their respect to Mats’ family by sending many genuinely touching messages. The most intense scene is, without a doubt, the stream of incoming emails from gamers worldwide. During that moment, Mats’ parents learned that gaming isn’t a fruitless pursuit but that it’s instead the perfect tool to build up strong and genuine connections, even with people you have never met.

Director Ree wants to highlight the positive impact of gaming and does that in many powerful ways. For most of the documentary’s second half, he uses a combination of Mats’ personal stories, his online blog posts, and his archived chats on the gaming platform to recreate Ibelin’s adventures and conversations in World of Warcraft. During our interview with the filmmaker, he mentioned that he hired a YouTube gaming creator to create the gameplay graphics to tell Mats’ whole story.

With the brilliant and intuitive cinematic visualization, Ree not only tells the world who Mats was but shows it to you via the world he spent roughly 20,000 hours in. You follow Ibelin through the same lens at Mats. You hear and see his raw, heartbreaking, and encouraging stories in the game. Whether it’s him having his first crush (but also breaking her heart) or helping others to overcome their problems (while Mats himself faces such a terrible disease in real life), throughout the animated sequences, you find out how much the gaming community meant to Mats and visa-versa. One of the most impactful lines is certainly ‘My chains are broken in this game’ as this refers to both him being confined (chained) to his wheelchair in real life and the fact that he could finally show his true self.

While that true self came through much more in the game than in real life, Mats’ parents knew who he really was deep down. During our interview, they mentioned that their son always asked how they were doing or if they needed anything. It’s those questions, that kindness, empathy, and love he also showed towards with his gaming community.

This comprehensive and warm documentary is also the perfect opportunity for World of Warcraft gamers all over Europe to repay that love, respect and kindness and they grab that chance firmly with both hands. Many people whose lives were positively changed by Ibelin sat down with Ree to show the world how much Mats meant to them. During moving interviews, whether via Zoom or in person, they explained who Mats was and how significant his impact was on them. You hear how he helped a gamer find his true identity, mended the bridge between son and mother, and showed parents the positive impact of gaming.

Those stories remind us of Mats’ compassion and how important it is to make a difference in someone’s life if possible. Whether it’s showing someone light in times of darkness or hugging them, Mats did it all (in-game and in person), and if there were more people like him, we would all feel loved, meaningful, and valued even more.

While The Remarkable Life of Ibelin doesn’t shy away from pain, sadness, and heartbreak, it focuses more on the immense support of a worldwide community, empowerment, and someone having a life-changing impact on people he has never met. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, but most importantly, you’ll feel inspired by the extraordinary Mats and his family.

The Remarkable Life of Ibelin is out on Netflix on the 25th of October