Roleplaying Game Movie Night #22: The Battle of Orgreave

I and some friends have a project of trying to watch all movies, tv episodes and other stuff with moving pictures related to roleplaying games ever made. We’re pretty far along on this goal. I’ll write here about old and new things we’ve found and watched.

The Battle of Orgreave, a documentary by Mike Figgis, is not strictly speaking about larp, but its themes come so close to many of the ideas explored in Nordic Larp that we felt it had to be included in the program. Indeed, if you’re making a political larp, this is must-see.

The documentary is about a re-enactment of the titular Battle of Orgreave, a key confrontation during the 1984 U.K. miner’s strike, brutally crushed by Margaret Thatcher’s government. The re-enactment was held at the real, historical locations, and many of the participants had personally been part of the actual events. At one point, an old former miner tersely notes that the sound of the policemen’s shields brings back memories.

The documentary explains the re-enactment and contextualizes the strike and its aftermath in interviews. There’s a lot of stuff here: Using re-enactment to situate the strike in the context of British historical battles. Having the actual people the event is about present. The limits and possibilities of re-creating events in a fictional framework.

There’s been a lot of Nordic Larp with a political focus, but none of the games has gotten quite this close with it’s subject matter. There’s a lot to learn here.

The whole movie is on YouTube:

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