Melbourne International Film Festival Review - Grand Theft Hamlet

 

“Shakespeare is already pretty violent…”

Creative, absurdist and endearing, Grand Theft Hamlet is a madcap digital documentary endeavour chronicling the comedic chaos of a group of out-of-work actors and gamers staging Hamlet within the online world of Grand Theft Auto as an artistic escape from the COVID lockdowns that’s hilarious, hopeful and heartfelt. 

Discussion Points:

To stage Hamlet in Grand Theft Auto Online, or not to stage Hamlet in Grand Theft Auto - that is the question! And thankfully the answer was yes! Despite the absurdity of such a notion, and the impracticality, desperate times call for desperate measures. And as two acting friends find themselves without work due to the third London COVID lockdown, a hare-brained scheme is concocted to recruit and cast players from GTA to put on a completely digital production of Hamlet. And thus ensues a marvellous Machinima documentary wherein a cavalcade of memorable avatars gather together in the digital space to stage a Shakespearean saga. And they pulled it off! With plenty of glitches, roadblocks, in-game interruptions and plenty of inadvertently hilarious hijinks, the cast and crew stage a truly memorable and genuinely impressive adaptation of the Danish drama. And outside the plays production, other parts of their external real lives bleed into the game as the cast converse about their real world stresses and pressures, joys, successes and challenges. The core friendship between Mark and Sam, and the marital relationship between Sam and Pinny, provide much of the films emotional core amidst the comedic chaos, often provided by the incredibly memorable ParTeb (whose alien avatar and general unpredictability provide plenty of laughs). Enduringly memorable, surprisingly heartfelt and impressively creative, Grand Theft Hamlet is a terrific tribute to the determination of a group to pull off something absurd yet deeply artful.