‘Ren Faire’ series review: HBO’s phantasmagorical medieval fable
If Willy Wonka had an obsession with the highlights of capitalism rather than the joys of candy, then Ren Faire may have been the product of Roald Dahl’s creativity back in 1964, with HBO’s latest mini-series playing out like cloak and dagger tale from a subversive otherworld. Set in the humble fields of Todd Mission in Texas, the series about the world-famous Renaissance Festival is a fairy tale doused in the gasoline of capitalism.
Melding reality and fantasy, Ren Faire feels more like a phantasmagorical journey rather than a traditional documentary, with director Lance Oppenheim using the self-proclaimed patriarch ‘King George’ as the pawn for his cinematic odyssey. An elderly man who seemingly wouldn’t be seen dead without his black shirt and unspecified military medals, George is an eccentric oddball who lives in a kitsch ‘castle’ laden with feminine statues and golden pillars. As the king of his fiefdom, he is heralded by his workers, guests and even those who wish to oust him.
“I wanna spend two million on art, two million on the garden and two million on me,” he proclaims, ruling over his land and property with all the patience and erraticism of King George III, who, too, had more money than sense. Such is one of the reasons why the likes of Jeff, the Entertainment Manager with the loyalty of a noble steed, Louie, the red-bull slurping ‘Lord of Corn’, and calculated assassin Vendor Coordinator Darla, wish to push him off his perch.
Just like the tales of old England, Ren Faire, too, boasts abnormally odd individuals driven by desires that seem extracted from the mythos of storybooks. It is in how each individual unravels across the course of three perfectly paced episodes that Oppenheim’s series truly thrives, as their vibrant dreams of possibility clash with the red tape of legal legislation that George has wrapped around his kingdom.
Essentially a game of dress-up on a vast multi-million dollar scale, sometimes the curtain drops on the whole charade, and the fragility of each character is exposed, with Oppenheim having a remarkable ability to access such moments. Driving a stone’s-throw from the festival to a point where he can still hear the crowds and smell the waft of popcorn, during one scene, Jeff shares his love for ‘Who I’d Be’ from Shrek: The Musical with this brief moment piercing into the core of the documentary, riding the line between tragedy and absurdity.
Toeing this line is nothing new for Oppenheim either, with the director having helmed the dreamlike 2020 documentary Some Kind of Heaven waving the same wicked wand of surrealism as his film unfolds with a similar chimerical flourish. Becoming his distinctive forte, the unique nature of his approach bears resemblance to Nathan Fielder’s exceptional drama The Rehearsal, placing the viewer in a position where fantasy and reality become indistinguishable.
Such makes the mediaeval squabbles of the Texas Renaissance Festival feel as serious as the capitalist tribulations of Wall Street yet equally as absurd, with King George feeling like Logan Roy of HBO’s Succession, if the latter adored mead and wasn’t caught in the trappings of modern politics. It’s a delicate recipe that Oppenheim manages to perfectly balance, providing ample time for viewers to bathe in the energy of the festival before adopting the cloak and dagger succession sub-plot.
Yet, for all its hilarious obscurities and style that drips with mediaeval opulence, it is the people of the festival that make the documentary such a delight, with Ren Faire speaking to the joy and, in some cases, the necessity of escapism.
