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Grand Theft Hamlet is a surrealistic , funny poignant and meta speculation on frame on a caper , TV games and civilisation record of the Lockdown
Article Summary
Grand Theft Hamletis one of the strangest documentaries ever made . It ’s also a funny artifact , one of the last cultural remnants of the Pandemic . During the height of Lockdown in 2021 , suddenly unemployed actorsSam CraneandMark Oosterveen , cash in one’s chips stir - crazy cooped up in their homes in London , take up playing Grand Theft Auto Online and , while escaping from the law , observe the Vineland Bowl , Los Santos ' version of the Hollywood Bowl , a concert stadium in Los Angeles . On a whim , they decide to put on Shakespeare’sHamletand apply their virtual smartphones in the game to invite any players to come and watch them . When a random player shows up and begin trying to kill them , they fight back while enumerate minded line fromHamletbefore the game ’s NPC cops show up in a eggbeater and kill them all in a hilarious gratuitous - for - all entirely part of the biz ’s " anything goes " feature . Sam ’s wife and filmmakerPinny Gryllsjoins him and Mark to make a documentary about their decision to present Hamlet in full , and the result is a surreal , farcical , hysterically fishy , and poignant speculation on art and life during crisis .
Grand Theft Hamlet Gives New Meaning to “All the World’s a Stage”
What begins as a silly , surreal , and farcical tattle of a bunch of unemployed London actors ' effort to put on a production ofHamletinside the Grand Theft Auto Online video secret plan during COVID becomes a poignant and curious story of lifespan during Lockdown that ’s also a account of friendship , loneliness , crisis , the artistic impulse that proves that Shakespeare at the correct place ( Grand Theft Auto Online ) and the right time ( The COVID Pandemic ) in the right hands ( bored , unemployed British actors ) can become a aliveness - change and spirit - affirming experience for everyone involved as the in - game production becomes a situation of solace for people struggling with loneliness and anxiety .
StagingHamletinside an receptive - humans on-line TV game is a completely bizarre folly that Sam and Mark know from the root . In fact , they admit that it ’s a terrible mind and probably unsufferable to pull off , yet they decide to have a go of it because what else is there to do while locked down at base during a world-wide pandemic ? They hold audition and get surprising reception from fellow actors and mass who have never represent before . They have to go through the sometimes annoying chaos of random players showing up to seek to kill them , which becomes a phantasmagorical reflection of the violent clock time of Shakespeare and the violent world of the manoeuvre itself . It turns out that the fierce , amoral , hyper - capitalistic world ofGrand Theft Auto Vreflected the chaos of the world and everyone ’s inner turmoil during the existential crisis they were all suffer during the Pandemic when the whole mankind shut out down . Grand Theft Hamletbecomes a digital Journal of the Plague Years that records the interior journeying of everyone who participated in the production .
When Life Bleeds into Art into Video Game and Back Again and Again
TWatchingGrand Theft Hamletalso reserve us to see the process and personalities of worker at their rawest and most vulnerable as they seek to support each other in a difficult mission . They drop off their crossroads when the actor protagonist they cast has to leave because he got a fizgig in the real world . pinafore becomes frustrated that Sam has become so obsessed with the output that he ’s fail her and their children when , in real lifespan , they ’re in the same theatre , but he ’s pass all his time on the Playstation trying to put the play together . The play becomes everything Sam has in his life because he has no house pass on , is unemployed , and has nothing else . The role of Hamlet becomes in step with Sam ’s state of mind as he ’s " film " wandering the desolate landscape ofGrand Theft Auto Online , quietly reciting Hamlet ’s muses about spirit , expiry , loneliness , and the nonsense of lifespan .
Nonetheless , stage Hamlet in the secret plan brings them together with not just actors but people who find meaning in the play , including a young trans person who finds their true statement in Hamlet ’s quandary , a silent spectator who dependably usher up to discover their progress , s and , hilariously , another player who volunteers to provide security for them as they rehearse , fending off any random players who show up to shoot at them or cause chaos with his own armoury of arm including a fighter jet , all while dressed as an alien . Their location for snoop the show are literally without point of accumulation inside the virtual world of Los Santos , a practical version of Los Angeles , and they bit by bit sail the good place to arrest auditions , conversation , and background for the gambling ’s various scenes .
Another Heaven, Another Hell, Another Purgatory, Another Stage
Grand Theft Hamletends up becoming the unknown and most human documentary in the artificial stage setting of a video secret plan . It makes everyone start to think about " sprightliness " inside a practical universe where to die just means to respawn to try again in a completely helter-skelter world where anything can materialize , which is why people playGTA Onlinein the first place . What does it mean when you do n’t have to worry about expire ? It ’s like a combination of heaven , hell , and purgatory all at the same time since you could make anything you want , and for Sam and Mark , it ’s putting on a show .
While stuck in Lockdown , they were pressure to think about what living think of if you could make your graphics . An actor is nothing if they ca n’t act or interact and engage with an audience , but they are still human , and the human affair to do is to happen a way of life to make your nontextual matter and bit . To roleplay in an notional story is to inscribe another world already . Doing that in the imaginary world of a television plot adds another surreal bed to that hall of mirrors . Their production ofGrand Theft Hamletends up showing how the play is relevant to life history and the human condition , even in this most artificial mount that ’s bursting with human race and joyousness . It ’s likeJ.G. Ballard ’s ultimate dream and incubus of a trigger-happy , creative world filled with phantasmagoric and farcical madness that ’s humane , liberating , and joyful . All it postulate is a dose of Shakespeare .
Grand Theft Hamletis streamingexclusively on MUBI .
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